RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
time to learn the uses of the various modern implements.
In Manila the marketing is usually done by the cook, but in our household this duty was delegated to the number one boy. One day the cook and the number two boy came to Mr. Taft with the announcement that they could not remain in the house with number one boy; that number one boy was a thief; that he smoked opium all the time he was supposed to be marketing; and that he was a bad Chinaman generally. Mr. Taft had always given number one boy the money with which to pay the other boys’ salaries and the cash market charges, so he said to the cook:
“Has number one always paid your wages?”
“Yes,” said the cook, with an eloquent shrug of his shoulders, “just my wages and nothing more.”
This meant, of course, that number one boy was committing the unforgivable sin of not dividing the “squeeze.”
There is no use going into what “squeeze” means in the Orient. It may come partly out of the master’s pocket and partly out of the pockets of the tradesmen; nobody knows. But the housekeeper soon learns that she gains. nothing by trying to circumvent the system in doing the marketing herself. The “squeeze” works, no matter who does the buying, and it soon comes to be recognised as a legitimate part of household expenses. The only thing that one can do is to make a complaint when it becomes too heavy.
It seems to have been very heavy in my husband’s establishment, and investigation proved to him that it was necessary to let number one go, so when I arrived there were just the two upstairs servants, the cook and number two, who had been promoted to the proud position of number one.
I went immediately to work to order my household as I always had been used to doing, and there’s where I began to get my experience of the Oriental character. My cook
104
