“Servants a nuisance!” exclaimed Jane, bounding into the topic with the exuberant plunge of a hunter when it leaves the high road and feels turf under its hoofs; “I should think they were! The trouble I’ve had in getting suited this year you would hardly believe. But I don’t see what you have to complain of⁠—your mother is so wonderfully lucky in her servants. Sturridge, for instance⁠—he’s been with you for years, and I’m sure he’s a paragon as butlers go.”

“That’s just the trouble,” said Clovis. “It’s when servants have been with you for years that they become a really serious nuisance. The ‘here today and gone tomorrow’ sort don’t matter⁠—you’ve simply got to replace them; it’s the stayers and the paragons that are the real worry.”

“But if they give satisfaction⁠—”

“That doesn’t prevent them from giving trouble. Now, you’ve mentioned Sturridge⁠—it was Sturridge I was particularly thinking of when I made the observation about servants being a nuisance.”