"Let me see: I gave you 10s. on Saturday, and 9d. the day before. Was it 9d.? No, it must have been 11d., for I gave you 1s., and you gave me 1d. out for the beggar; then there was 6s. 6d. on Monday, and 8d. you owed me from last money; and then the 1s. 6d. your master gave you for a parcel—you brought him 2d. back, and 3d-1/2. out of the butcher's bill; no—you had to give 3-1/2d. to the butcher, but you came to me for the 1/2d., and I had no coppers, so we still owe him the 1/2d.; by the way, don't forget to pay him the next time you go. Then there's the baker—no, I paid the baker myself, and I think the housemaid paid the butter-man; but you got in the cheese the day before, and I have a sort of recollection that I may possibly owe you for that, all but a few pence you must have had left of mine, that I told you to take from off the chimney-piece. Well, cook, I think that's nearly all! Now how do your accounts stand?"
This the poor cook, who
is
a cook, and
not
a conjuror, finds it no easy matter to discover; all that she is quite certain of is, that her disbursements have somewhat exceeded her receipts, and being an honest woman, though a poor one, she wishes to cheat neither her mistress nor herself; but what with her memory and her want of it, her involved payments, and different receipts; what she owed her mistress, and what her mistress owes her; what she got from her master, and what was partly settled by the housemaid; the balance from the butcher's bill, and the intricacies of the cheese account, the poor woman is perfectly bewildered.
She counts again and again; recapitulates her mistress's data and her own; sums upwards, backwards, and forwards, and endeavours to explain the differences between them; then, if she can read and write, she brings her slate to "explain the explanation," and the united calculations of maid and mistress, which are after all entirely unavailing to produce a more correct account, probably consume more time, and are expressed in more words, than would suffice to fill another volume like the present. Two minutes' daily reckoning from a
regular
sum in hand would do the business effectually, and prevent either party from being out of pocket or out of temper. Thus, for instance, the maid has her usual sum of five shillings to account for; she pays during the day, for:
| s. | d. | |
| Bread | 1 | 9 |
| Beer | 0 | 6 |
| Vegetables and fruit | 0 | 10 |
| Milk | 0 | 4 |
| Matches | 0 | 1 |
| Parcel | 1 | 0 |
| Total | 4 | 6 |