Part 6 (2/2)
General character of servants--The duties and perquisites of the cook--Taking account with cook--His oblique ideas of morality--The boy, his duties, etc.--The way that small things mysteriously disappear in a house--Percentages--The servant question.
The general experience of Englishmen in China with regard to the servants is, taking it all in all, a pleasant one. The average intelligence of the cla.s.s of men and women that are employed is a fairly good one. They consequently learn their work easily, and as they are industrious and moved by a sense of fidelity they render such very pleasant services that when families have to return to England, they think with regret of the home life they have left behind them in that far-off land, which owed a good deal of its charm to the cheerful and willing service rendered by the servants in it.
It must not be inferred that there never is any friction. That would be to a.s.sume a state of things that could be found nowhere in the wide world.
Disagreements do happen and collisions do take place, but these are but as it were the occasional clouds in a sky that is usually sunny, and besides there is so much of the grotesque mingled with the unpleasant, that after the affair is over and the irritation has subsided one is more inclined to laugh at the whole affair than to be angry.
If there is a family, the servants usually required are a cook, a table boy, a water coolie to carry water, and an amah or nurse, who will help with the children, if there are any, look after the bedrooms, and do any mending that may be needed. The most important amongst them all is the cook, for the comfort of a home depends in a very large measure upon him, so the great aim of every housewife is to secure a man who knows his work well, is clean, and is fairly honest. If such a one as this can be secured, there will never be any disposition to get rid of him, even though he may have serious faults that it requires considerable patience to endure.
As soon as it is known that you wish to engage a cook, you have almost an immediate application for the situation. You gaze upon the applicant with a good deal of anxiety, and if it were possible you would like to read into his very heart to know what kind of a character he is. Is he good-tempered, or is he touchy and masterful, and, like most Chinese, does he want his own way? You scan his face to see if you can catch a glimpse of the soul within, but it is as expressionless as a statue. The control that a Chinaman has over his features is one of the mysteries of this wonderful people. He has so schooled them, that when he likes they will show no trace of what is going on in his mind.
You inquire of him if he knows how to cook. If he is a really clever artist, he will reply, ”A little.” There is a double motive in saying this. It is a sign of pride, and it also secures him in the future from any very serious criticism of the mistress, for if he should fail to please her in any particular dish, he will remind her that he warned her when she was engaging him that he did not profess to be an adept in cooking.
All the time you have been questioning him he has been looking at you with those black, piercing eyes of his and trying to read you. Are you shrewd and wideawake, or are you so green that you can be cheated with your eyes open? Are you acquainted with the wiles of the Chinese mind, or will you accept everything you are told as though it were gospel truth? Will you watch everything that is going on in your kitchen, or will you leave the full control in his hands? These are some of the questions that flash through the Yellow brain, and before he quits you he will have formed a very accurate idea of the kind of mistress you are to whom he has engaged himself.
There is one thing that is quite settled, and that is from the moment of his engagement the one great aim of his life is to make as much money as he can out of the situation he has just gained. His facilities for doing so are very great, for the custom in the East is for the cook to purchase all the daily food that is used in the family. The mistress never does this. It would be impossible for her to rise every morning by daylight and go into the narrow ill-smelling streets and buy from the farmers as they bring in their produce from the country in the early dawn. There are months in the year, besides, when the heat is so intense and the rays of the sun are so scorching that she would not dare to venture out to make her purchases. The result is, the duty of buying is left to the cook, and as his conscience is an exceedingly elastic one, it may easily be conceived what an opportunity this gives him of making money.
In the art of doing this every Chinaman is an adept. He begins to learn it when he is a boy. His mother sends him out when he is a small lad to buy some simple thing for the home. He returns with the article minus ten per cent., which he considers his lawful commission, though he is careful not to let his mother know, and with this he plays pitch-and-toss with other youthful gamblers in the street. As he grows in years, he becomes more expert in the art of extracting commissions from every sum entrusted to his care, and now that he has become a cook a golden field is opened up before him, where his gains are only bounded by the ignorance or carelessness of his employer.
As it is impossible for his mistress to follow him down the narrow, crowded streets where the provisions for the day are to be bought, he has a wide field for the exercise of his ingenuity as to how much extra he is to charge for everything he buys. She does not know the market rates, and therefore within certain very undefined limits she is at his mercy.
It is as good as a play to watch the progress of the taking an account of the purchases for any particular day, and to see how the wily Chinaman, with his childlike, innocent-looking face, and the Englishwoman with her open-hearted, guileless disposition, settle such a difficult financial problem.
The latter seats herself at the table with her account-book open and with pen in hand. She is restless and uneasy, for she is conscious that she is going to be cheated, and that she herself will have to register the figures that will ensure her own defeat. The Oriental stands some way off, with head slightly drooping and with a face that might have been that of a saint. With a calmness and simplicity of manner, as though he were stating one of Heaven's eternal principles, he mentions the first item of his account. There is no faltering or hesitation in his accent, or any sign of guile, though it is precisely fifty per cent. more than he actually paid for the article he has mentioned.
The lady moves restlessly in her seat. Her heart is beginning to swell with indignation, for she is positive that she is being overcharged. She has no proof, however, and with her Occidental training that it is not right to bring an accusation unless supported by some evidence, she puts down the lying figures. The Oriental looks on without the shadow of a smile, though with his sense of humour bubbling up within him, he is conscious of the huge comedy that is being played. He has scored his first success, but to let his face show that would be to throw victory from him when it was just within his grasp.
Another and another item is given, as though they were quotations from his own sacred cla.s.sics, each one as mendacious as the first, and the scribe, conscious that with every additional figure sums are being stolen from her own pocket and transferred to the cook's, nervously writes them down, though her heart is vigorously protesting all the time. The only protest she can make is an indignant ”Too dear, too dear by far,” which the Oriental listens to unmoved, and as though they were eulogies upon his honesty.
At length one sum, that she has certain information about, that is a hundred per cent. over the market price is given her, without a quaver in his voice. She at once asks him, with a ring of pa.s.sion that up to this time she has managed to suppress, how it is that he dares to charge her just double of what he gave. The Chinaman is equal to the occasion. No man, indeed, in this great Empire is ever at a loss for an answer on the spot to the most awkward question that may be put to him. An Occidental will stammer and hesitate when a difficulty of this kind occurs, and the scarlet flush that will flash over his face will announce his confusion.
An Oriental will instantly become more calm. His eyes will melt into gentleness, and his face a.s.sume the appearance of one that is absorbed in some great moral problem that he is endeavouring to solve.
The cook looks at the lady in gentle wonder. The charge has steadied him, and made him more tranquil and composed. ”What does the mistress mean?” he asks. His face is childlike in its a.s.sumption of innocence. ”Do you really think I would cheat you? I may be poor,” he continues, ”but I am honest, and if you only go to the market and inquire the price of goods, you will find that I am charging exactly what I paid.” ”Well,” she triumphantly replies, ”I have been there already, and I find you have charged me just double the market rate.”
This seems to be a crus.h.i.+ng answer, but it only serves to bring out the true resources of the Chinese mind. Instead of being fl.u.s.tered with this decided evidence of his guilt, he becomes more self-possessed. ”It is quite true,” he says, ”that such goods can be bought at the price you name, but they are inferior articles, and such as would not be accepted by you, were I to buy them for you. You always want the best, and I would never dream of purchasing such things. I can get them for you at the price you mention, but you must not complain if they are not as good as you are used to.”
The lady is determined not to be beaten, so she puts down the price at half that he has named, the cook meanwhile protesting that he is a loser, and that himself and family will have to suffer.
But it is not simply in the matter of overcharges that the cook finds a large field open to him for successful financial operations. Overweights are also a fruitful source of revenue to him. When he goes to market he always carries with him his steelyard, and every purchase that is made is weighed with it.
Chinese law has never legislated with regard to weights and measures, and no inspector ever goes round to see that the public is not cheated when they make their purchases. The consequence is that every man that can possibly afford it carries his own steelyard, in order to check the tradesmen who might be inclined to give them short measure. The cook would no more dream of going out to market without his steelyard than he would think of going without his fan in the dog days. It is his _vade mec.u.m_ by which he can measure his gains, for when he returns home he reports to the mistress that he has bought so many ounces more than he really has, and the money she pays him for these mythical weights is so much pure gain that he pockets.
If the lady, however, takes a pride in the management of her household and is anxious to keep down expenses, she will insist that every article that the cook buys shall be brought and weighed in her presence before she pays for it. This home is not an ideal one for a cook. He has, however, to submit to the inevitable, but he at once sets his wits to work to circ.u.mvent her by ingenious ways and dogged perseverance in his plans, such as no watchfulness on her part will ever enable her entirely to frustrate. There is no profession in China like a cook's for developing the inventive faculties or for stimulating the imagination.
The mistress in self-defence gets a steelyard. Without that she would be at the mercy of the man whose whole aim in life is now to circ.u.mvent her, and circ.u.mvent her he will, or the Yellow brain will have lost its cunning. Some of his schemes are most ingenious. For example, he is told one day to go out and buy a fowl. He goes to the market, and secures one after an immense amount of haggling and carries it home.
After he has got there he proceeds to cram down its throat some very common stuff, till its crop is as full as it can contain. This is to increase its weight and consequently his gains, for the animal is sold at so much an ounce.
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