"Please remember for the future that when we say we want cutlets, this is what we mean."
"As you please," he answered affably; "I call them frisolen. I knew how to cook them before the Effendi's cook showed me," he went on.
"Why did you never let us have them, then?" I said severely.
"How could I know you would like them?" he answered with injured innocence.
"How did you know we liked tough chunks burnt on a brazier?" was my icy retort.
Arten shrugged his shoulders; there never has been any accounting for the whims of women.
Small differences of opinion such as these were continually cropping up between us; and I would tell him in calm and measured tones, though in forcible English, what I thought of him. As the language was unintelligible to him, this method had the advantage of relieving my feelings without hurting his. But there were secret bonds of sympathy between us. We both suffered intensely from the cold, and Arten would carefully wrap things round me so that the apertures and crevices were not on the windward side. There is a good deal of art in this, and he did it very scientifically.
"Little things feel the cold," he would say compassionately, and in such a kindly spirit that, for the moment, I forgave him his greed and forgot to feel undignified.
We were also on common ground when I tried to cook dishes which I did not know how to cook. Currents of great sympathy ran between us when things did not seem to be turning out right and Arten would tentatively suggest various ways and means. But he never did what a foolish or disagreeable person would have done: he never expressed in his looks that I was no better than himself, which obviously would not have been true, since I did not pretend to be a cook, while Arten did.
And then when the critical moments of our existence arrived and we placed the dish before X, we both watched with the same intensity for the expression of her face after the first mouthful. X was singularly appreciative, and, when she kept assuring us how excellent it was, Arten would glance at me encouragingly and appear to share the delight I experienced at my own prowess. X thought Arten's cookery good, too, but then she never knew what she was eating, and, if you do not know the name of the dish, how can you judge whether or not it is cooked as it ought to be?