Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/133

Rh It is a pleasure to go shopping in New Zealand, the attendants are so polite. They thank you for everything. With each purchased article I seldom got less than two "Thank yous," and sometimes three. The number depended upon the multiplicity of moves between buyer and seller. Usually there was one for each move. By an Auckland salesman I was thanked thrice when purchasing postcards, first when I handed him the cards I had selected, again when I paid, and lastly when he gave me my change.

Shopkeepers and their assistants are not the only polite people in New Zealand. Everybody who waits on the public has a supply of "Thank yous" at tongue's end, ready for instant service. Some of these came at me on the jump; others were delivered with prim, pleasant formality; while others, and they were legion, "dragged their weary length along" as if the speakers were loath to part with them.