I hope he isn't extravagant."
"He's not only well dressed, but he's beginning to be well spoken. I
believe he's beginning to observe that there is such a thing as not
talking through the nose. He still says, 'I don't know as,' but most
of the men they turn out of Harvard say that; I've heard some of the
professors say it."
Mrs. Sewell was not apparently interested in this.
XXII.
That night Lemuel told Mrs. Harmon that she must not expect him to
do anything thenceforward but look after the accounts and the
general management; she must get a head-waiter, and a boy to run the
elevator. She consented to this, as she would have consented to
almost anything else that he proposed.
He had become necessary to the management of the St. Albans in every
department; and if the lady boarders felt that they could not now
get on without him, Mrs. Harmon was even more dependent.
With her still nominally at the head of affairs, and controlling the
expenses as a whole, no radical reform could be effected. But there
were details of the outlay in which Lemuel was of use, and he had
brought greater comfort into the house for less money. He rejected
her old and simple device of postponing the payment of debt as an
economical measure, and substituted cash dealings with new
purveyors. He gradually but inevitably took charge of the store-
room, and stopped the waste there; early in his administration he
had observed the gross and foolish prodigality with which the
portions were sent from the carving-room, and after replacing Mrs.
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