Mr. Oliver was the funniest-looking old gent I ever see, if I may
say so respectfully. He was as bald as an egg, with a sort of frill
of brown hair going from ear to ear behind; and as if that wasn't
enough, he was shaved as clean as a whistle, as though he had made
up his mind that people shouldn't say that it had all gone to beard
and whiskers, anyway. He wrote books, a great many of them, and you
may often see his name in the papers, and he was for ever poking
about into what didn't concern him, and my Lady, she said to me when
she found me a little put out at him asking about how things went on
in the servants' hall, she said to me--

'You mustn't mind him, Mary,' she said; 'you know he likes to find
out all that he can about everything, so as to put it in his books.'

And he certainly talked to every one he came across--even the
stable-boys--in a way that you could hardly think becoming from a
gentleman to servants, if he wasn't an author, and so to have
allowances made for him, poor man! He talked to the housemaids, and
he talked to the groom, and he talked to the footman that waited on
him at lunch when he had it late, as he did sometimes, owing to him
having been kept past the proper time by his story-writing, for he
wrote a good part of the day most days, and often went up to London
while he was staying with us--to sell his goods, I suppose. He wore
curious clothes, not like most gentlemen, but all wool things, even
to his collars and his boots, which were soft and soppy like felt;
and he took snuff to that degree I wouldn't have believed any human
nose could have borne it, and he must have been a great trial to
Mrs. Oliver until she got used to him and his pottering about all
over the house in his soft-soled shoes; and the mess he made of his