Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 6.pdf/361

Rh But the trouble only begins when you have bought your thing. "Nothing more, sir!" he says. "Nothing," I say. "Braces?" he says. "No, thank you," I say. "Collars, cuffs?" He looks at mine swiftly but keenly, and with an unendurable suspicion.

He goes on, item after item. Am I in rags, that I should endure this thing? And I get sick of my everlasting "No, thank you"—the monotony shows up so glaringly against his kaleidoscope variety. I feel all the unutterable pettiness, the mean want of enterprise of my poor little purchase compared with the catholic fling he suggests. I feel angry with myself for being thus played upon, furiously angry with him. "No, no!" I say.

"These tie-holders are new." He proceeds to show me his infernal tie-holders. "They prevent the tie puckering," he says with his eye on mine. It's no good. "How much?" I say.

This whets him to further outrage. "Look here, my man!" I say at last, goaded to it, "I came here for gloves. After endless difficulties I at last induced you to let me have gloves. I have also been intimidated by the most shameful hints and insinuations into buying that beastly tie-holder. I'm not a child that I don't know my own needs. Now will you let me go? How much do you want?"

That usually checks him.

The above is a fair specimen of a shopman—a favourable rendering. There are other things they do, but I simply cannot write about them because it irritates me so to think of them. One infuriating manœuvre is to correct your pronunciation. Another