"Oh, dear," said Francesca, "everything keeps going up." She was engaged
upon the weekly books and spoke in a tone of heartfelt despair.
"Well," I said, "you've known all along how it would be. Everybody's
told you so."
"Everybody? Who's everybody in this case?"
"I told you so for one, and Mr. Asquith mentioned it several times, and
so did Mr. McKenna."
"I have never," she said proudly, "discussed my weekly books with
Messrs. Asquith and McKenna. I should scorn the action."
"That's all very well," I said. "Keep them away as far as you can, but
they'll still get hold of you. The Chancellor of the Exchequer knows
your weekly books by heart."
"I wish," she said, "he'd add them up for me. He's a good adder-up, I
suppose, or he wouldn't be what he is."
"He's fair to middling, I fancy--something like me."
"_You!_" she said, in a tone of ineffable contempt. "You're no good at
addition."
"Francesca," I said, "you wrong me. I'm a great deal of good. Of course
I don't pretend to be able to run three fingers up three columns of
figures a yard long and to write down the result as L7,956 17_s._ 8_d_.,
or whatever it may be, without a moment's pause. I can't do that, but
for the ordinary rough-and-tumble work of domestic addition I'm hard to
beat. Only if I'm to do these books of yours there must be perfect
silence in the room. I mustn't be talked to while I'm wrestling with the
nineteens and the seventeens in the shilling column."
"In fact," said Francesca, "you ought to be a deaf adder."
"Francesca," I said, "how could you? Give me the butcher's book and let
there be no more _jeux de mots_ between us."
I took the book, which was a masterpiece of illegibility, and added it
up with my usual grace and felicity.
"Francesca," I said as I finished my task, "my total differs from the
butcher's, but the difference is in his favour, not in mine. He seems to
have imparted variety to his calculations by considering that it took
twenty pence to make a shilling, which is a generous error. Now let me
deal with the baker while you tackle the grocer, and then we'll wind up
by doing the washing-book together."
The washing-book was a teaser, the items being apparently entered in
Chaldee, but we stumbled through it at last.
"And now," I said, "we can take up the subject of thrift."
"I don't want to talk about it," she said, "I'm thoroughly tired of it.
We've talked too much about it already."
"You're wrong there; we haven't talked half enough. If we had, the books
wouldn't have gone up."
"They haven't gone up," she said. "They're about the same, but we've
been having less."
"Noble creature," I said, "do you mean to say that you've docked me of
one of my Sunday sausages and the whole of my Thursday roly-poly pudding
and never said a word about it?"
"Well, you didn't seem to notice it, so I left it alone."
"Ah, but I did notice it," I said, "but I determined to suffer in
silence in order to set an example to the children."
"That was bravely done," she said. "It encourages me to cut down the
Saturday sirloin."
"But what will the servants say? They won't like it."
"They'll have to lump it then."
"But I thought servants never lumped it. I thought they always insisted
on their elevenses and all their other food privileges."
"Anyhow," she said, "I'm going to make a push for economy and the
servants must push with me. They won't starve, whatever happens."
"No, and if they begin to object you can talk to them about tonnage."
"That ought to bowl them over. But hadn't I better know what it means
before I mention it?"
"Yes, that might be an advantage."
"You see," she said, "Mrs. Mincer devotes to the reading of newspapers
all the time she can spare from the cooking of meals and she'd be sure
to trip me up if I ventured to say anything about tonnage."
"Learn then," I said, "that tonnage means the amount of space reserved
for cargoes on ships--at least I suppose that's what it means, and----"
"You don't seem very sure about it. Hadn't you better look it up?"
"No," I said. "That's good enough for Mrs. Mincer. Now if there's an
insufficiency of tonnage----"
"But why should there be an insufficiency of tonnage?"
"Because," I said, "the Government have taken up so much tonnage for the
purposes of the War. How did you think the Army got supplied with food
and shells and guns and men? Did you think they flew over to France and
Egypt and Salonica?"
"Don't be rude," she said. "I didn't introduce this question of tonnage.
You did. And even now I don't see what tonnage has got to do with our
sirloin of beef."
"I will," I said kindly, "explain it to you all over again. We have
ample tonnage for necessaries, but not for luxuries."
"But my sirloin of beef isn't a luxury."
"For the purpose of my argument," I said, "it is a luxury and must be
treated as such."
"Do you know," she said, "I don't think I'll bother about tonnage. I'll
tackle Mrs. Mincer in my own way."
"You're throwing away a great opportunity," I said.
"Never mind," she said. "If I feel I'm being beaten I'll call you in.
Your power of lucid explanation will pull me through."