The cook arrived with an expression of deep solemnity, tempered by all the amiable qualities you can think of. He held in his hand an extremely dirty piece of paper, covered with strange characters in Nagri—how little anybody would have thought, when they were designed in the dawn of the world, that they would ever be used to indicate the items of an Englishman’s dinner! The cook put a pair of spectacles on to read them, which completed the anomaly, and made him look more benevolent than ever.
“Well, bawarchi,” said Helen, ready with pencil and note-book, “account hai?”
“Gee-ha, hai!” responded he. Then after a respectful pause, “S’in-beef,” he said, “char anna.”
“Shin beef,” repeated Helen, with satisfaction, “four annas. Yes?”
“Fiss—che[[34]] anna. Bress mutton—egrupee, che anna. Eggis—satrah—aht[[35]] anna.”
[34]. Six.
[35]. Eight.
“Seventeen eggs, bawarchi? When did we eat seventeen eggs? How did we eat seventeen eggs yesterday?”
Mrs. Browne spoke impulsively, in English, but Kali Bagh seemed to understand, and with an unruffled front proceeded to account circumstantially for every egg. His mistress was helpless. But, “to-morrow,” thought she earnestly, “I will see whether he puts four in the soup!”
The cook went on to state that since yesterday the Browne family had consumed three seers of potatoes—six pounds—at two annas a seer, which would be six annas. “And I don’t believe that, either,” mentally ejaculated Mrs. Browne, but Kali Bagh continued without flinching. He chronicled salt, pepper, sauce, sugar, he mentioned rice, dhal, “garden-isspice,” “guava isstew,” “k’rats,”[[36]] “kiss-miss,”[[37]] “maida,”[[38]] and enough “mukkan”[[39]] to have supplied a charity-school. Helen was amazed to find the number of culinary articles which undeniably might have been used in the course of twenty-four hours—she did not consider the long calm evening that went to meditation over the list. When it was finished she found that the day’s expenses in food had been exactly eight rupees six annas, or about eleven shillings. Helen had had a thrifty education, and she knew this was absurd. She turned to the flagrant eggs and to the unblushing potatoes, and she made a calculation.