He is somewhat nonplussed at the unexpected reply.
"Oh!" he says. "Oh! the bed, is it? I thought it was a pincushion!
Well, if it is the bed, then what is it doing out here, on the top
of everything else? You think that because I'm only a man, I don't
understand a bed!"
"That's the proper place for it," responds the chambermaid.
"What! on top?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, then where are the clothes?"
"Underneath, sir."
"Look here, my good girl," he says; "you don't understand me, or I
don't understand you, one or the other. When I go to sleep, I lie
on a bed and pull the clothes over me. I don't want to lie on the
clothes, and cover myself with the bed. This isn't a comic ballet,
you know!"
The girl assures him that there is no mistake about the matter at
all. There is the bed, made according to German notions of how a
bed should be made. He can make the best of it and try to go to
sleep upon it, or he can be sulky and go to sleep on the floor.
He is very much surprised. It looks to him the sort of bed that a
man would make for himself on coming home late from a party. But it
is no use arguing the matter with the girl.
"All right," he says; "bring me a pillow, and I'll risk it!"
The chambermaid explains that there are two pillows on the bed
already, indicating, as she does so, two flat cushions, each one a
yard square, placed one on top of the other at one end of the
mixture.
