Part 2 (1/2)

TOM JONES.”

The celestial smirks and jabbers something in pidgin English, which not being able to understand you answer with a grunt and pa.s.s on.

The celestial says, ”All right, savez, can do,” and vanishes.

Reaching your quarters, you find two or three more beaming natives, also armed with letters of recommendation, probably borrowed for the occasion, and who severally inform you ”My b'long welly good boy.”

These letters of recommendation become kinds of heirlooms, and as foreigners seldom know the correct names of their Chinese servants, they are, for a consideration, handed about from one to the other when seeking employment.

You must have a boy anyhow, and are just beginning to inspect the candidates when a friend suddenly turns up.

”I'm awfully sorry, old man, I couldn't manage to come and meet you on board, but the steamer arrived earlier than was expected, so I came straight on here, and knowing you would require a boy, brought one along who wants a job. I don't know anything about him, but he says he's all right, and they are mostly pretty much alike. Anyhow, you might give him a trial, and if he doesn't suit, just kick him out.”

Before you can reply the door is thrown violently open, and your luggage, which you had left for the time being in your cabin on the steamer, is brought in on bamboo poles by half-a-dozen coolies and dumped on the floor, the beaming celestial who met you on the pontoon following close behind, carrying your collection of sun hats, umbrellas and sticks. He immediately pays the coolies, unstraps rugs and trunks, and commences to arrange the room.

Your friend says, ”Oh, I didn't know you had brought your own boy,”

and goes on to talk of other things.

You feel rather pleased at all the luggage having turned up without any effort on your part, pleased at being freed from the importunities of out-of-work boys, and dumbly acquiesce, so that Lao San remains until you have the time or inclination to engage a really good boy; but as you seldom have the time, and never the inclination, he is already pretty firmly established.

In the course of the day he introduces a cook as well as two or three coolies that you do not want but must have, and explains that all these men are of exceptionally good character, and that he ”can secure b'long all ploper.” You submit, of course, and so your household is arranged by the boy without you really having had a word to say. A day or two later you suddenly remember that nothing has been said on the subject of wages.

You ring up the boy, and after a short discussion it is arranged that he is to receive eight dollars a month, the cook ten, and the coolies six and five. Everything is arranged with the boy, the other servants not appearing on the scene at all, and so it is that, having obtained situations for his friends, they are by ”olo custom” obliged to pay him a squeeze on their salaries, the cook probably two dollars a month and the coolies one each. Without your consent or knowledge the cook introduces a young friend of his into the kitchen to be known as the ”second cook,” or simply ”No 2.” His position corresponds to that of the scullery-maid, was.h.i.+ng up pots and pans, lighting the fire and running errands, in return for which he receives very little, if any, pay, but learns the art of cooking. Your house is now in going order, and at first things really work very well under the boy's supervision.

A few weeks later it suddenly dawns on you that expenses are mounting up in rather an unaccountable way, and you look into matters.

Nothing very serious comes to light, and any doubtful little points are most clearly explained away by the boy. However, it is not long before you again begin to feel uneasy and insist on knowing details of the various small accounts which are monthly presented to you by each individual on the premises.

You are being squeezed by all!

The boy charges for a number of small items such as lampwick, matches, soap, candles, etc., that you have never had, or in half the quant.i.ties stated. Also, on things which you have had, a large percentage over cost price is levied. All the native tradesmen are in league with your servants, and while you know that you are being swindled it would be quite impossible to prove it, for should a shopkeeper or butcher tell you what his prices really were he would lose much of his business, as servants in foreign employ would, in time, by some means or other, take the custom elsewhere.

You are the means whereby a large but limited circle of Chinese manage to live and oftentimes save money. All members of the circle regard you as their prey, and tacitly combining to play into each other's hands they fleece you with impunity, it being extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get one Chinaman to expose or bear witness against another, especially if it be with the object of benefiting the foreigner.

The best way for a bachelor to run his house is to set aside a certain sum which he knows should be sufficient for monthly expenditure. If he can keep his expenses below this figure so much the better. If he cannot, and they exceed it, he should cut down the various accounts until a sufficient reduction has been reached. It is useless trying to argue the case, he would always come off worsted.

I heard of one bachelor who had been drawing a salary of six hundred dollars a month, but he kept up such style that he could only just cover expenses. After a time his business partly failed, so he sent for the boy and explained he could only spend four hundred dollars.

The domestic pulled a long face, but the style of living was not altered in the least.

Again bad times came and expenditure had to be further reduced to three hundred dollars a month. The bachelor informed his servant that he had better get another situation as he feared it would be difficult for him to come down from six hundred dollars to three hundred, and that it would be wiser to start a fresh establishment more in accordance with his reduced circ.u.mstances.

After reflection the boy decided to struggle on, and this he did with such success that the style of living was exactly the same as it had ever been.

The word ”boy” bears no reference whatever to the individual's age, which may be anything between sixteen and sixty. It is merely a term applied by foreigners to their personal attendants.

The duties of the boy are those of the ordinary housekeeper in England, with several additions.

He looks after the other servants and is generally responsible for their good behaviour. He pays all wages and the accounts of the local tradespeople, on which, of course, he levies a recognised squeeze. He waits at table, answers the bell, makes the beds and brushes his master's clothes, in fact, makes himself generally useful.

As a rule, he accompanies his master to all dinner-parties to a.s.sist in waiting. Also, it is a common and recognised practice for the boy of a house where a big dinner or a dance is being held to borrow requisites from the boy of another house, and often without reference to the owner, so that when dining out you not infrequently drink from your own gla.s.ses, use your own knives and forks, see your own lamp on the dinner-table and are waited on by your own servant.