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