About a year ago I paid a visit to my hosier and haberdasher with
the intention of purchasing a few things with which to tide over
the remaining months of winter. After the preliminary discussion of
atmospherics had been got through, the usual raffle of garments was
spread about for my inspection. I viewed it dispassionately. Then,
discarding the little vesties of warm-blooded youth and the double-width
vestums of rheumatic old age, I chose several commonplace woollen
affairs and was preparing to leave when my hosier and haberdasher leaned
across the counter and whispered in my ear.
"If I may advise you, Sir, you would be wise to make a large selection
of these articles. We do not expect to replace them."
He glanced cautiously at an elderly gentleman who was stirring up a box
of ties, then, lowering his voice another semitone, added, "The mills
are now being used exclusively for Government work." He insinuated the
death-sentence effect very cleverly, and at that moment, coming to his
support, as it were, the old gentleman tottered up, seized upon two
garments and carried them off from under my very fingers. As he went out
a middle-aged lady entered and made straight for the residue upon the
counter. A feeling of panic came upon me. "Right you are," I exclaimed
hurriedly, "I'll take the lot." As a matter of fact she only wanted a
pair of gloves for her nephew in France.
A few days later, still having the wool shortage in mind, I approached
my hosier and haberdasher on the subject of shirts. For a second or two
he looked thoughtfully at the toe of his boot. Then coming suddenly to a
decision he disappeared stealthily into the back premises, from which
he presently emerged carrying a large bale of flannel, which he cast
caber-wise upon the counter.
"There," he said triumphantly, "I don't suppose there's another piece of
flannel like that in the country." He fingered it with an expert touch.
"You don't say so," I said as I rubbed it reverently between my finger
and thumb, just to show that he wasn't the only one who could do it.
"I'm afraid it's only too true," he confessed, "and I may add that,
after we have sold out our present stocks, flannel of any kind will be
absolutely unobtainable."
"None at all?" I asked, horror-struck at the vision of my public life in
1920--a bow cravat over a double-width vestum.
He shook his head and smiled wisely.
I am instinctively against hoarding, but I knew that if I did not buy it
Jones would, and then some fine day, when nobody else had a shirt left,
he would swagger about and make my life intolerable. This decided me and
I bought the piece.
A few days later it occurred to me that it might be advisable to lay
down some socks. My idea was in perfect unison with that of my hosier
and haberdasher. Socks were going to be unprocurable in a few months. I
patted myself on the back and bought up the 1916 vintage of Llama-Llama
footwear. The following week thirty-seven shirts arrived and I had to
buy a new chest-of-drawers.
This, as I have stated before, was about a year ago. Yesterday I paid my
hosier and haberdasher another visit. If all the bone factories had not
been too exclusively engaged, etc., etc., I wished to buy a collar stud.
There was an elderly man standing in the shop. He was quite alone,
contemplating a mountain of garments. There were little vesties,
double-width vestums, and ordinary woollen affairs.
You could have knocked me over with a dress-sock.
And where was my hosier and haberdasher? Had the stranger--just awakened
to the value of his possessions--entered the shop and suddenly cast all
this treasure upon the counter? I imagined the shock of this procedure
on a man like my hosier and haberdasher, whose heart was perhaps a
trifle woolly. Had he collapsed? I glanced surreptitiously behind a
parapet of clocked socks.
A moment later, from somewhere in the back premises, he appeared
carrying a large bale of flannel, which he cast caber-wise upon the
counter. I was dumbfounded.
Then I knew the truth.
"Sir," I said, turning to the stranger, "I believe you are about to make
a selection from these articles (I indicated them individually), which
you imagine to be the last of their race?"
He nodded at me in a bewildered sort of way.
"In a few months," I continued remorselessly, "they will be absolutely
unprocurable" (he gave a start of recognition), "and you, having bought
them, will sneak through life with the feelings of a food-hoarder,
mingled with those of the man who slew the last Camberwell Beauty.
I know the state of mind. But you need not distress yourself. These
garments (I indicated them again) will only be unprocurable because they
are in your possession. I have about half-a-ton myself, which, until a
few minutes age, would have been quite unprocurable. But I have changed
my mind and, if you will come with me, you can take your choice with
a clear conscience, and (I glanced maliciously at my faded hosier and
haberdasher) at the prices which were prevalent a year ago."
I linked my arm with that of the stranger, and together we passed out of
the shop into the unpolluted light of day.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Mother (to child who has been naughty)._ "AREN'T YOU
RATHER ASHAMED OF YOURSELF?"
_Child._ "WELL, MOTHER, I WASN'T. BUT NOW THAT YOU'VE SUGGESTED IT I
AM."]
* * * * *