Whenever a servant is wanted, somebody
beats on this triangle from one stroke up to seven, according to
the number of the house in which his presence is required; and as
all the servants are always being wanted, and none of them ever
come, this enlivening engine is in full performance the whole day
through. Clothes are drying in the same yard; female slaves, with
cotton handkerchiefs twisted round their heads are running to and
fro on the hotel business; black waiters cross and recross with
dishes in their hands; two great dogs are playing upon a mound of
loose bricks in the centre of the little square; a pig is turning
up his stomach to the sun, and grunting 'that's comfortable!'; and
neither the men, nor the women, nor the dogs, nor the pig, nor any
created creature, takes the smallest notice of the triangle, which
is tingling madly all the time.
I walk to the front window, and look across the road upon a long,
straggling row of houses, one story high, terminating, nearly
opposite, but a little to the left, in a melancholy piece of waste
ground with frowzy grass, which looks like a small piece of country
that has taken to drinking, and has quite lost itself.
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