On the temperature of shaving water
Eighty-six degrees Fahrenheit. Not eighty-four. A note on why I parted with James Forster, and on how a house should run.
I have been asked, more often than I find reasonable, why I dismissed my previous manservant, James Forster, on the morning of 2 October last. The story has gone round the clubs in several versions, most of them unkind to me and one of them unkind to him, so I set down the facts.
James Forster brought my shaving water at eighty-four degrees Fahrenheit. The proper temperature is eighty-six. I told him so, and I engaged another man the same day.
It is said that this was unjust. I do not think so. Two degrees is not much, but it is not nothing, and a servant who brings water at eighty-four has either not measured it or has measured it and decided that eighty-four was good enough. The first is carelessness. The second is a difference of opinion, and a house cannot be run on differences of opinion. It can be run on a timetable. I have kept one for many years, and it has never once let me down when it was followed.
Forster was a good man in other respects and I gave him an excellent character. I understand he is now in service in Kensington, with a family who prefer their water cooler. I wish them all happiness.
For those who have asked, here is the timetable that was in force when Passepartout joined me. I gave him a copy on his first morning. It was hanging by his bed when he went to fetch his bag.
| Time | What | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 8.00 am | I rise | Not 7.59. Not 8.01. |
| 8.23 am | Tea and toast | The toast to be brought, not left. |
| 9.37 am | Shaving water | 86°F. A thermometer is provided. |
| 9.40 am | Hair dressed | Three minutes. I have timed it. |
| 11.30 am | I leave for the Reform Club | 575 paces to the door, as a rule; 576 in wet weather. |
| 12.47 pm | Luncheon at the club | Same table. |
| Afternoon | Newspapers; whist | The Times, the Standard, the Morning Chronicle, in that order. |
| Midnight | I return home and retire | Passepartout to wait up. He does not need to be awake. |
Passepartout read it twice, asked me two sensible questions about the tea, and did not once ask why. I took this as a good sign, and it was. He has told me since that he came to me precisely because he had heard I was the most regular man in London, and that he had had enough of adventures, having been a singer, a circus rider, a gymnast and a fireman in Paris. He wanted a quiet house where nothing ever happened. He got one for about four hours. I have sometimes wondered whether I owe him an apology for this. He says not.
I am aware that some people find this ridiculous. I have never understood why. A railway runs to a timetable and nobody laughs at it. A steamer that keeps to its sailing list is admired. Why a man who does the same with his breakfast should be considered eccentric is not clear to me. Order is not a cage. It is the thing that leaves one's mind free for other things, because one is never at the mercy of the small ones.
It was the timetable, in a sense, that took me round the world. A man who knows that his tea is at 8.23 knows also that a train leaves Charing Cross at 8.45, and that the one fact is as dependable as the other. I went round the world on that principle: everything has its hour, and one must simply be there for it.
I should be honest and record that the rules have changed slightly since my return. Breakfast is now at 8.30, because my wife does not rise at eight and sees no reason why she should. The shaving water is still at eighty-six degrees. Passepartout brings it, and is generally about a minute late, and I have found, to my surprise, that I do not mind.
No. 7, Savile Row