Perth Amboy evening news., 1904-04-29
HIRED GUESTS IN ENGLAND.
Versatile People Engaged at Country
House Parties to Entertain
the Company.


the Company.
To the ordinary man of hospitable in
stincts it would seem the height of alb
| surdity to pay a substantial sum for the
privilege of entertaining any guest,
however desirable, with the best his
| house can furnish or money can buy;
and yet, says London Answers, on the
evidence of one of the gentlemen who
supply these guests there are hundreds
of country houses where the thing is
regularly done every winter.
If you think about it a little, said
this gentleman to the writer, you will
0 o see that there is a great deal to be
said in favor Of the practice of hiring
guests. AS you know, there is many a
day in winter when you can neither hunt
nor shoot, skate 0 motor, and when,
unless you wish your guests to grow
suicidal or take the next train home,
you must make things as cheerful as pos
sible indoors.
At such times it is invaluable to have
a guest who can make things go-one
of those clever, versatile people who
can sing a good song, tell a good story,
get up theatricals, organize a dance, and
turn his hands to many of the scores of
ways in which dull days and long even
ings can be pleasantly passed. OF course,
in most house parties there are one or
two of such people, but the difficulty is
to get them to bestir themselves suf-
ficiently. They are too indolent or too
diffident; and so country hosts are only
too glad to get hold of the right kind of
man and pay handsomely for his
services.
And there are lots of men who will
jump at this kind of thing, men of fam
lily and accustomed to good society-for
this Is a sine qua non and who are per-
fectly in their element at the game of
entertaining. I have over a hundred on
my list and could double the number at
a few days notice; and they are of all
kinds-retired army men, younger sons
of noble houses, a sprinkling even Of
young men with titles, young barristers,
writer's, university men and so on-all
gentlemen, with more time on their
hands than money in their purses and
all glad to have a good time in the oun
try while replenishing their ex-
chequer.
l have also on my list a few men who
are expert in different lines in science,
music, politics and SO on, and who can
talk ~learnedly on most subjects, from
the megalithic age to the mechanism
of a motor car, SO that, as you see, he
must be a difficult host whom l cannot
satisfy.
OF course, 1t would never do for a mar
to be known in the house as a hired
guest, and so no one is in the secret eX-
cept the host and myself. He is simply
one Of the house party, and in every re-
spect treated exactly the same as the
other guests, and he knows nothing
whatever of the financial arrangement
between the host and myself.
There are other advantages, too,
in addition to having a good time and
getting through the dull part of the year
pleasantly. There is always the chance
of picking up an heiress, you know, and
of making influential friends who may
be of considerable use later on in life.
Within the last year two of my men
have made excellent matches.
One of them, the younger son of an i'm
poverished peer, married the only
daughter of a wealthy brewer, whom he
met last winter at q house in Wales, and
some day he will get at least half o
million with his wife; and the second
man won the heart Of a rich and at
tractive young widow, who was one of a
house party in Devonshire, and is now
in a position to play the host on a prince
ly scale.
But M of the best pieces of luck
fell to the lot of a young Balliol man
who was reading for the bar and whom
I SEM as a paid guest to the house of a
rich Yorkshire squire. He was a very
clever, fascinating kind of fellow, and
the old squire took such a fancy to
him that he induced him to stay on per-
m%anently as a. oompanion-really to
take the place Of an only son who had
fallen early in the Boer w'ar-and when
the old gentleman died a few months
ago he left his quondam hired guest his
entire fortune with the exception of a
few small legacies.
No More Barrels of Matches.