The Key To Being A Great Butler

Dear Young Percival,

I am sorry to say that this note will serve as your sole orientation for the position of butler to Lord Crosley at Grimbleton Manor. I hoped to train you in person, but unfortunately the fog patterns on the lagoon dictate that the barge I have hired must leave post haste or else be stranded here for another three months, and that simply will not do, as I have promised a helping hand at Nephew Henri’s inn for the duration of the busy season.

I hope you do not believe my leaving so quickly to be a sign of discontent with the position you will assume in my place. On the contrary, the many years in Lord Crosley’s employment have been some of the best in my life. In the coming months, I am sure to suffer envious memories of serving him his bone broth tea and cumin biscuits each night; of greeting his many pale cousins and conveying their various steamer trunks and caged birds to the guests’ quarters; and of maintaining his ever-growing collection of antique monocles.

Truly, there is not much to explain here. Most of your work will be very straightforward, and Old Mr. Nimwald, the cook, will be ever-present if you have any questions. My one piece of advice pertains to the use of keys. Grimbleton Manor contains many rooms that Lord Crosley forbids anyone but himself to enter. Each door has a unique lock. Since Lord Crosley rarely wears more than the heirloom bathrobe of his great-great-grandfather, he cannot carry all of the keys to these doors himself. That job, then, falls upon the butler.

What makes this seemingly simple duty worth mentioning is that you cannot carry the keys around on a ring, as keys on a ring jingle, and jingling reminds Lord Crosley of bells, and bells remind Lord Crosley of music, and music reminds Lord Crosley of his sweet Genevieve. Thus the jingling of keys is, to his ears, akin to “an auditory blizzard of pure fire.”

Complicating this is that Lord Crosley does not like to wait for things. He is a man of whims, and if he decides he wants access to a room–whether it be the Room Of Many Inoperable Clocks, or the Solarium of Eery Miniatures, or even the Chamber of Ghastly Howls–he wants it immediately. In other words, you cannot simply hang the keys in some far off remote location within Grimbleton to fetch when necessary; you will need to carry them on your person at all times.

Therefore, you should invest, at your soonest convenience, in a KeySmart Pro. It is not a simple ring, but a holder, capable of compactly housing many keys at once, from the ordinary in shape and size–such as the key to the library–to the longer, foreign varieties–like the one to the labyrinthine wine cellar that makes a noise when it is extended as if whispering “run away” in Italian. What separates the Pro from other models is that you can use an app called Tile to locate the it if misplaced. It can also be made to emit a sound, so you can find it even when it is hidden (for example, when Old Mr. Nimwald has somehow mistaken it for a jar of cumin and placed into a spice drawer).

I hope you find this note helpful. Furthermore I apologize if its ending feels abrupt; I hear the bell ringing, which signals the barge’s imminent departure. Or, moreover, I hear Lord Crosley weeping, which means a bell must have been rung somewhere nearby.

Best of luck!

Sincerely,
Gustav Hilbertine