Mr Toogood paid another visit to Barsetshire, in order that he might get a little further information which he thought would be necessary before despatching his nephew upon the traces of Dean Arabin and his wife. He went down to Barchester after his work was over by an evening train, and put himself up at 'The Dragon of Wantly', intending to have the whole of the next day for his work. Mr Walker had asked him to come and take a return potluck dinner with Mrs Walker at Silverbridge; and this he had said that he would do. After having 'rummaged about for tidings' in Barchester, as he called it, he would take the train for Silverbridge, and would get back to town in time for business on the third day. 'One day won't be much, you know,' he said to his partner, as he made half an apology for absenting himself on business which was not to be in any degree remunerative. 'That sort of thing is very well when one does it without any expense' said Crump. 'So it is,' said Toogood; 'and the expense won't make it any worse.' He had made up his mind, and it was not probable that anything Mr Crump might say would deter him.
He saw John Eames before he started. 'You'll be ready this day week, will you?' John Eames promised that he would. 'It will cost you some forty pounds, I should say. By George--if you have to go on to Jerusalem, it will cost you more.' In answer to this, Johnny pleaded that it would be as good as any other tour to him. He would see the world. 'I'll tell you what,' said Toogood; 'I'll pay half. Only you mustn't tell Crump. And it will be quite as well not to tell Maria.' But Johnny would hear nothing of this scheme. He would pay the entire cost of his own journey. He had lots of money, he said, and would like nothing better. 'Then I'll run down,' said Toogood, 'and rummage up what tidings I can. As for writing to the dean, what's the good of writing to a man when you don't know where he is? Business letters always lie at hotels for two months, and then come back with double postage. From all I can hear, you'll stumble on her before you find him. If we do nothing else but bring him back, it will be a great thing to have the support of such a friend in the court. A Barchester jury won't like to find a man guilty who is hand-and-glove with the dean.'
Mr Toogood reached the 'Dragon' about eleven o'clock, and allowed the boots to give him a pair of slippers and a candlestick. But he would to go to bed just at that moment. He would go into the coffee-room first, and have a glass of hot brandy-and-water. So the hot brandy-and-water was brought to him, and a cigar, and as he smoked and drank he conversed with the waiter. The man was a waiter of the ancient class, a grey-haired waiter, with seedy clothes, and a dirty towel under his arm;not a dapper waiter, with black shiny hair, and dressed like a guest for a dinner-party. There are two distinct classes of waiters, and as far as I have been able to perceive, the special status of the waiter in question cannot be decided by observation of the class of waiter to which he belongs. In such a town as Barchester you may find the old waiter with the dirty towel in the head inn, or in the second-class inn, and so you may the dapper waiter. Or you may find both in each and not know which is senior waiter and which junior waiter. But for service Ialways prefer the old waiter with the dirty towel, and I find it more easy to satisfy him in the matter of sixpence when my relations with the inn come to an end.
'Have you been here long, John,' said Mr Toogood.
'A goodish many years, sir.'
'So I thought, by the look of you. One can see that you belong in a way to the place. You do a good deal of business here, I suppose, at this time of the year?'
'Well, sir, pretty fair. The house ain't what it used to be sir.'
'Times are bad at Barchester--are they?'
'I don't know much about the times. It's the people is worse than the times, I think. They used to like to have a little bit of dinner now and again at a hotel;--and a drop of something to drink after it.'
'And don't they like it now?'
'I think they like it well enough, but they don't do it. I suppose it's their wives as don't let 'em come out and enjoy themselves. There used to be the Goose and Glee club;--that was once a month. They've gone and clean done away with themselves--that club has. There's old Bumpter in the High Street--he's the last of the old Geese. They died off, you see, and when Mr Biddle died they wouldn't choose another president. A club for having dinner, sir, ain't nothing without a president.'
'I suppose not.'
'And there's the Freemasons. They must meet, you know, sir, in course, because of the dooties. But if you'll believe me, sir, they don't so much as wet their whistles. They don't indeed. It always used to be a supper, and that was once a month. Now they pays a rent for the use of the room! Who is to get a living out of that, sir?--not in the way of a waiter, that is.'
'If that's the way things are going on I suppose the servants leave their places pretty often?'
'I don't know about that, sir. A man may do a deal worse than "The Dragon of Wantly". Them as goes away to better themselves, often worses themselves, as I call it. I've seen a good deal of that.'
'And you stick to the old shop?'
'Yes, sir; I've been here fifteen years, I think it is. There's a many goes away, as doesn't go out of their heads, you know, sir.'
'They get the sack, you mean?'
'There's words between them and master--or more likely, missus. That's where it is. Servants is so foolish. I often tell 'em how wrong folks are to say that soft words butter no parsnips, and hard words break no bones.'
'I think you've lost some of the old hands here since this time last year, John?'
'You knows the house then, sir?'
'Well;--I've been here before.'
'There was four of them sent, I think, it's just about twelve months back, sir.'
'There was a man in the yard I used to know, and last time I was down here, I found that he was gone.'