The figures were fat and solid. The amount set forth would have maintained an ordinary family of seven or eight, in comfort, for a month. A horrid sensation of bankruptcy overwhelmed me. Then I looked at the grocer's bill. It was four pages long, and the "demnition total" quite appalling. I could scarcely believe the testimony of my own eyes. The gentleman who supplied the fish appeared to be equally rapacious. Was it all a hateful conspiracy, a fell plot to effect my ruin, or—or was it French economy?
"We have eaten ourselves to the poorhouse, Letitia," I said, with a sinking heart. "I—I can't pay these bills."
"Oh, they must be somebody else's bills," murmured Letitia, "they—they can't be ours."
"They can't be anybody else's," I protested, in the calmness born of despair. "Nobody could stand them. Rockefeller doesn't live in this neighborhood. Carnegie is miles away. They might be Carnegie's, if he were a neighbor. As it is, my girl, I'm afraid they are ours. Yet how can they be?"
"Of course we have lived well," said Letitia reflectively, "we have lived very well. We can't even put it down to waste, because French people never waste."
"And yet"—I tried to fathom the mystery—"there has always been three times as much as we could eat. The other night, we had six ptarmigans before us, and we ate one apiece. The inference is, Letitia, either that Madame and Leonie have appetites like cart-horses, or that they throw the things away."
"A French cook throws nothing away," persisted Letitia almost defiantly. "That I know."
"You had better ask Madame about it," I said doggedly. "Perhaps she can explain."
"That is surely your privilege, Archie. You pay the bills; I don't."