Various Flavors of Coffee Read Online Free PDF

same rate, sir, not the same amount— once again I have to warn you of the dangers of imprecision.” Pinker smiled— the brute was enjoying this. “Mrs. Ward’s opus is approximately two hundred thousand words long—or six shillings and thruppence a word. I will pay you six and thruppence for every descriptor adopted for our code. And a bonus of twenty pounds when it is complete.That is fair, is it not?”
    I passed my hand across my face. My head was spinning. I had drunk far too much of that damn coffee. “The Wallis-Pinker Method.”
    “I’m sorry?”
    “It must be called the Wallis-Pinker Method. Not the other way round.”
    Pinker frowned. “If a Pinker is the originator, surely Pinker must have the greater share of the credit.”
    “As the writer, the bulk of the work will fall to me.”
    “If I may say so,Wallis, you have not yet fully grasped the principles by which business is conducted. If I want to find a more amenable employee, I can simply go down to the Café Royal and get myself one. I found you within five minutes, after all.Whereas
    if you want to find yourself another employer, you will be hard pushed to do so.”
    “Possibly,” I said. “But no two writers are exactly the same.
    How can you be sure that the next man will do as good a job?” “Hmm.” Pinker considered.“Very well,” he conceded abruptly.
    “The Wallis-Pinker method.”
    “And, as this is a literary work, I will need an advance. Thirty pounds.”
    “That is a very considerable amount.” “It is customary,” I insisted.
    To my surprise, Pinker shrugged.“Thirty pounds it is, then. Do we have an agreement?”
    I hesitated. I had been going to say that I would have to think about it, that I must take advice. I could already imagine the sneers of my friends Hunt and Morgan if I ever told them of this commission. But—I could not help it—I glanced at the girl. Her eyes were shining, and she gave me . . . not a smile exactly, but a kind of tiny signal, the eyes widening with the briefest nod of encouragement. In that moment I was lost.
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Good,” the merchant said, standing up and offering me his hand. “We start in this office tomorrow morning, sir, sharp at ten o’clock. Emily, will you be so good as to show Mr.Wallis out?”

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    “Acerbic”—an acrid and sour sensation on the tongue.
    — lingle ,The Coffee Cupper’s Handbook

    *

A
    s we reached the bottom of the stairs I stopped her. “Would it be possible to look round the warehouse? I am curious to know more about the business to which Mr. Pinker has
    decided I am to be apprenticed.”
    If she understood that I was inviting her to make fun of her employer, she did not show it.“Of course,” she said simply, and led me into the vast storeroom I had glimpsed earlier.
    It was a curious place—devilish hot, from the line of roasting drums that stood to one side, the flames of their burners bright in the gloom. The boat had been unloaded now, and the big doors onto the jetty were closed, with only one fat blade of sunlight pushing through the crooked gap between them.There were windows, high above, but they admitted little illumination. Rather, the air was full of a peculiar mistiness; caused, I now saw, by a thick
    dust of cotton-like fibers which floated all around us. I reached into it; the air eddied around my hand.
    “Coffee parchment,” she explained.“Some of the beans we receive have not yet been milled.”
    Her words meant nothing to me, but I nodded. “And all this coffee belongs to Pinker?”
    “Mister Pinker,” she said, with a little emphasis on the title, “owns four warehouses, of which the two largest are in bond.This is merely the clearing house.” She pointed. “The coffee comes in along the river, by boat. Then it is sampled, weighed, milled, roasted and placed in its proper location, according to its country of origin. In this store we have, as it were, the whole world. Over there is Brazil; over