--with a view to his own individual tastes; valeted him, kept his
cigars within a certain prescribed limit by a firm actuarial principle
which transferred any surplus to his own use; gave him good advice,
weighed up his friends and his enemies with shrewd sense; and protected
him from bores and cranks, borrowers and "dead-beats."

Jim was accustomed to take a good deal of responsibility, and had more
than once sent people to the right-about who had designs on his master,
even though they came accredited. On such occasions he did not lie
to protect himself when called to account, but told the truth
pertinaciously. He was obstinate in his vanity, and carried off his
mistakes with aplomb. When asked by Ingolby what he called the Governor
General when he took His Excellency over the new railway in Ingolby's
private car, he said, "I called him what everybody called him. I called
him 'Succelency.'" And "Succelency" for ever after the Governor General
was called in the West. Jim's phonetic mouthful gave the West a roar of
laughter and a new word to the language. On another occasion Jim gave
the West a new phrase to its vocabulary which remains to this day.
Having to take the wife of a high personage of the neighbouring Republic
over the line in the private car, he had astounded his master by
presenting a bill for finger-bowls before the journey began. Ingolby
said to him, "Jim, what the devil is this--finger-bowls in my private
car? We've never had finger-bowls before, and we've had everybody as was
anybody to travel with us." Jim's reply was final. "Say," he replied,
"we got to have 'em. Soon's I set my eyes on that lady I said: 'She's a
finger-bowl lady.'"

"'Finger-bowl lady' be hanged, Jim, we don't--" Ingolby protested, but
Jim waved him down.

"Say," he said decisively, "she'll ask for them finger-bowls--she'll ask
for 'em, and what'd I do if we hadn't got 'em."

She did ask for them; and henceforth the West said of any woman who put
on airs and wanted what she wasn't born to: "She's a finger-bowl lady."

It was Jim who opened the door to Jethro Fawe, and his first glance was
one of prejudice. His quick perception saw that the Romany wore clothes
not natural to him. He felt the artificial element, the quality of
disguise. He was prepared to turn the visitor away, no matter what he
wanted, but Ingolby's card handed to him by the Romany made him pause.
He had never known his master give a card like that more than once