ing rid of her seemed beyond
the possibility of realization. That the axe should fall her
employers knew well, and many a resolve was taken that at the end of
the season she should go, yet neither Mrs. Perkins nor her husband
liked to tell her so. Her good points were still too potent,
although none could deny that all confidence in her efficiency was
shattered past repair. The situation finally reached a point where
it inspired reflections of a more or less humorous order.

"I tell you what I think," said Thaddeus one evening, after a
particularly flagrant breach on Jane's part, involving a streak of
cranberry sauce across a supposititiously clean plate: "you won't
discharge her, Bess, and I won't; suppose we send for Mr. Burke, and
get him to do it."

Mr. Burke was the one reliable man in town. It didn't make much
difference what the Perkinses wanted done, they generally sent for
Mr. Burke to do it, largely because when he attempted a commission
he saw it through. A carpenter and builder by trade, he had for
many years looked after the repairs needful to the Perkins'
dwelling; he had come often between Thaddeus and unskilled labor; he
had made bookcases which were dreams of convenience and sufficiently
pleasing to the eye; he had "fixed up" Mrs. Perkins's garden; he had
supplied the family with a new gardener when the old one had taken
on habits of drink, which destroyed not only himself but the
cabbages; he had kept an eye on the plumbers; he had put up, taken
down, and repaired awnings--in short, as Perkins said, he was a
"Universal." Once, when a delicate piece of bric-a-brac had been
broken and the china-mender asserted that it could not be mended,
Perkins had said, "See if Burke can't fix it," and Burke had fixed
it; and as final tribute to this wonder, Perkins had said, in
suffering:

"My dear, I'm afraid I have appendicitis. Send for Mr. Burke."

"Mr. Burke!" echoed his wife.

"Yes, Mr. Burke," moaned the sufferer. "If my vermiform appendix is
to be removed, I'd rather have Mr. Burke do it with a chisel and saw
than any surgeon I know; and I won't take ether either, because it
is such a satisfaction to see him work."

So, when this happy pair of house-holders had reached what might be
described as the grand climateric of their patience, and it was
finally decided that Jane's usefulness was a thing of the past, and
utterly beyond redemption, Thaddeus naturally suggested turning to
his faithful