The Cadbury Club

The Cadbury Club for Those Who Serve is the world's most exclusive organization for servants. Its motto is 'Fine enough is not fine enough." Based in London, it has satellite branches elsewhere in Britain. A person of high status would not dream of hiring a servant elsewhere. It contains various secret societies, such as the Inner Circle and the Roses and Thorns Committee. Millicent Chamberlain sits at the front desk of the Cadbury Club and answers the phone. The Cadbury Club gives out the Silver Salver Award for Best Cadbury Club Servant of the Year. The club has a Codex of Employers, a training library, official stationery, an "ex libris" plate in each of its books, and a biweekly newsletter.

Inspector Ambrose suspects the Cadbury Club of being a hotbed for nefarious activities. His suspicions are likely inspired by the exclusive and secretive nature of the organization. He goes so far as to describe it as a "shadowy organization of villainy."

## Known Members

* Aspris
* Barnaby
* Carlington
* Fitzie
* Millicent Chamberlain
* Pilcrow
* Regina Wilhelmina
* The Servant
* Snood
* Starling

## Standards

### Servants

Members are expected to behave in accordance with the *Cadbury Club Manual for Service*. The club requires a thorough grounding in the highest-quality literature so that servants can supply quotations to employers who are grasping for similes or allusions. The Cadbury Club encourages strictly professional employer-employed relationships and frowns upon true friendship, which is unseemly. The Cadbury Club frowns upon servants who come from reduced circumstances, which is also unseemly. "They like their servants drawn entirely from good middle-class stock," Fitzie claims.

Servants get demerits if a situation gets so out of hand that their employers have to call the club.

### Contracts

The club insists that employers sign strict and specific contracts. Employers may come to the Cadbury Club Archives between eight and nine A.M. on Mondays and Fridays to examine the club's copy of the contract in the reading room (magnifying glass provided).

Fitzie alleges that they are, according to his contract, employed to think about shoulders and lips. Said contract also specifies that they have ready access to the *Jolly Good Person*'s personal funds and don't have to dust inside of sock drawers.

## Secret Societies

### The Inner Circle

The Inner Circle is an alliance of talented and polished servants who are dedicated to maintaining the safety and serenity of their employers at all costs. According to Regina Wilhelmina, "The Cadbury Club Inner Circle is for the most elite members, for lady's maids and gentlemen's gentlemen who have attained the peak of their position." It has elaborate tests and rigorous standards. Members solve the most intractable of problems, so they seek to prepare for all eventualities. The society has many resources; it even has the capacity to send chambermaids to saw through the bars of prison cells in the event that a member is arrested.

The Inner Circle has prevented the publication of innumerable scandalous, tell-all books. Regina has personally destroyed hundreds.

Although the Inner Circle works behind the scenes, members find the term "secret agent" gauche. Despite being a secret society, the Inner Circle is much discussed among members of the Cadbury Club. The Inner Circle is, however, popularly believed to be a myth.

The Cadbury Club Inner Circle evaluates nominees in seventeen different categories on a scale of 0 to 500 for each.

### The Rose and Thorns Committee

The Rose and Thorns Committee exists to prevent rich, foolish employers from making romantic mistakes. Its members guide employers away from bad matches and toward better ones. Chaired by Millicent Chamberlain, the committee uses its centuries of research and insight into noble families to make good matches for employers, who often don't know what will make them happy. Nevertheless, the Rose and Thorns Committee does not consider itself a matchmaker society because its goal is to arrange matters such that employers make the right decision and feel that it is their own choice.

#### Attempted Matches

Rory Wintermint and Frankincense Cygnet-Signet

Pipsy Swell and "Thunder" Bailey Mott

Tabby St. Clair and Marmaduke Featherstonehaugh (Fitzie mentions in Chapter 5 that The Cadbury Club had some questions about whether or not they were getting closer)

### The Cadbury Club Irregulars

The Cadbury Club Irregulars' founder and president is Trina Wilhelmina. The highly secretive organization's sole purpose is to train people who want to join the Cadbury Club. The Cadbury Club Irregulars has only two members: Trina Wilhelmina and Rebecca Macintosh. At the time of *Tally Ho,* the latter is losing interest in favor of picture shows.

## Building

The Cadbury Club building is an elegant early 17th-century building in the black-and-white Tudor style. The main entrance is through a great oak door. The building has been renovated and strengthened over the centuries, but it retains its classic facade aside from a royal blue awning declaring the name of the club in a flourish-adorned script.

The front room and much of the ground floor are in the Louis XIV style. The third floor has some rooms with more contemporary pieces, such as the table loaned to the Noble Gases Club.

### Ducks and Drakes

The only training area open to the public, Ducks and Drakes is a much-spoken-of tea room where those who aspire to become really high-quality valets or maids practice what they have learned. Employers conduct interviews here when their own homes are in a state of disarray.

## Loans

The Cadbury Club loans items (such as furniture and books) out to social clubs. Millicent states that the Cadbury Club has had bad experiences loaning things out to the Noble Gases Club, citing a valuable 18th-century atlas that has never been returned.

## Awards

*Best Cadbury Servant of the Year*

*Silver Salver Award*

## Newsletter

Servants write admiring profiles of their employers in the Cadbury Club's biweekly newsletter.

## The Cadbury Club Training Library

Some of the titles in the Cadbury Club Training Library include

* *Clever Pugilism: The Smart Guide to Making Your Opponent Smart, As It Were*
* *Sparkling Dinner Conversation: Win Them Over Through Clever Comments*
* *Elegant Gestures That They Will Be Impressed With, As Used At the Finest Dinner Parties*
* *Dirty Fighting: Gouging, Biting, Scratching, and Other Things You Must Not Do*
* *Sneaking Around for Fun and Profit*
* *A Lengthy and Tiresome History of the Printing Press Set in a Minuscule Type*
* *Strong Writing: How to Use as Absolutely Few Words as Possible in a Given Situation In Order to Create the Best Possible Prose for a Powerful Effect*
* *Fast-Talking: Getting Out of Trouble with Your Tongue*
* *How to Sing Extraordinarily High Notes in Three Simple Lessons: An Operatic Primer for Those Who Dare*
* *An Enthusiast's Guide to Stage Combat: How to Convincingly Kill and Be Killed!!!*
* *The ABCs of Opera Glasses, for Children of All Ages*
* *How To Talk About Opera in a Manner That Will Impress Those Around You*
* *Incisive and Accurate Remarks That Will Make People Think You Are Perceptive*