“The outlook is not encouraging for us smaller businesses,” said Mr.
Scarrick to the artist and his sister, who had taken rooms over his
suburban grocery store. “These big concerns are offering all sorts of
attractions to the shopping public which we couldn’t afford to imitate,
even on a small scale—reading-rooms and play-rooms and gramophones and
Heaven knows what. People don’t care to buy half a pound of sugar
nowadays unless they can listen to Harry Lauder and have the latest
Australian cricket scores ticked off before their eyes. With the big
Christmas stock we’ve got in we ought to keep half a dozen assistants
hard at work, but as it is my nephew Jimmy and myself can pretty well
attend to it ourselves. It’s a nice stock of goods, too, if I could only
run it off in a few weeks time, but there’s no chance of that—not unless
the London line was to get snowed up for a fortnight before Christmas. I
did have a sort of idea of engaging Miss Luffcombe to give recitations
during afternoons; she made a great hit at the Post Office entertainment
with her rendering of ‘Little Beatrice’s Resolve’.”
“Anything less likely to make your shop a fashionable shopping centre I
can’t imagine,” said the artist, with a very genuine shudder; “if I were
trying to decide between the merits of Carlsbad plums and confected figs
as a winter dessert it would infuriate me to have my train of thought
entangled with little Beatrice’s resolve to be an Angel of Light or a
girl scout. No,” he continued, “the desire to get something thrown in
for nothing is a ruling passion with the feminine shopper, but you can’t
afford to pander effectively to it. Why not appeal to another instinct;
which dominates not only the woman shopper but the male shopper—in fact,
the entire human race?”
“What is that instinct, sir?” said the grocer.
* * * * *
Mrs. Greyes and Miss Fritten had missed the 2.18 to Town, and as there
was not another train till 3.12 they thought that they might as well make
their grocery purchases at Scarrick’s. It would not be sensational, they
agreed, but it would still be shopping.
For some minutes they had the shop almost to themselves, as far as
customers were concerned, but while they were debating the respective
virtues and blemishes of two competing brands of anchovy paste they were
startled by an order, given across the counter, for six pomegranates and
a packet of quail seed. Neither commodity was in general demand in that
neighbourhood. Equally unusual was the style and appearance of the
customer; about sixteen years old, with dark olive skin, large dusky
eyes, and thick, low-growing, blue-black hair, he might have made his
living as an artist’s model. As a matter of fact he did. The bowl of
beaten brass that he produced for the reception of his purchases was
distinctly the most astonishing variation on the string bag or marketing
basket of suburban civilisation that his fellow-shoppers had ever seen.
He threw a gold piece, apparently of some exotic currency, across the
counter, and did not seem disposed to wait for any change that might be
forthcoming.
“The wine and figs were not paid for yesterday,” he said; “keep what is
over of the money for our future purchases.”
“A very strange-looking boy?” said Mrs. Greyes interrogatively to the
grocer as soon as his customer had left.
“A foreigner, I believe,” said Mr. Scarrick, with a shortness that was
entirely out of keeping with his usually communicative manner.
“I wish for a pound and a half of the best coffee you have,” said an
authoritative voice a moment or two later. The speaker was a tall,
authoritative-looking man of rather outlandish aspect, remarkable among
other things for a full black beard, worn in a style more in vogue in
early Assyria than in a London suburb of the present day.
“Has a dark-faced boy been here buying pomegranates?” he asked suddenly,
as the coffee was being weighed out to him.
The two ladies almost jumped on hearing the grocer reply with an
unblushing negative.
“We have a few pomegranates in stock,” he continued, “but there has been
no demand for them.”
“My servant will fetch the coffee as usual,” said the purchaser,
producing a coin from a wonderful metal-work purse. As an apparent
afterthought he fired out the question: “Have you, perhaps, any quail
seed?”
“No,” said the grocer, without hesitation, “we don’t stock it.”
“What will he deny next?” asked Mrs. Greyes under her breath. What made
it seem so much worse was the fact that Mr. Scarrick had quite recently
presided at a lecture on Savonarola.
Turning up the deep astrachan collar of his long coat, the stranger swept
out of the shop, with the air, Miss Fritten afterwards described it, of a
Satrap proroguing a Sanhedrim. Whether such a pleasant function ever
fell to a Satrap’s lot she was not quite certain, but the simile
faithfully conveyed her meaning to a large circle of acquaintances.
“Don’t let’s bother about the 3.12,” said Mrs. Greyes; “let’s go and talk
this over at Laura Lipping’s. It’s her day.”
When the dark-faced boy arrived at the shop next day with his brass
marketing bowl there was quite a fair gathering of customers, most of
whom seemed to be spinning out their purchasing operations with the air
of people who had very little to do with their time. In a voice that was
heard all over the shop, perhaps because everybody was intently
listening, he asked for a pound of honey and a packet of quail seed.
“More quail seed!” said Miss Fritten. “Those quails must be voracious,
or else it isn’t quail seed at all.”
“I believe it’s opium, and the bearded man is a detective,” said Mrs.
Greyes brilliantly.
“I don’t,” said Laura Lipping; “I’m sure it’s something to do with the
Portuguese Throne.”
“More likely to be a Persian intrigue on behalf of the ex-Shah,” said
Miss Fritten; “the bearded man belongs to the Government Party. The
quail-seed is a countersign, of course; Persia is almost next door to
Palestine, and quails come into the Old Testament, you know.”
“Only as a miracle,” said her well-informed younger sister; “I’ve thought
all along it was part of a love intrigue.”
The boy who had so much interest and speculation centred on him was on
the point of departing with his purchases when he was waylaid by Jimmy,
the nephew-apprentice, who, from his post at the cheese and bacon
counter, commanded a good view of the street.
“We have some very fine Jaffa oranges,” he said hurriedly, pointing to a
corner where they were stored, behind a high rampart of biscuit tins.
There was evidently more in the remark than met the ear. The boy flew at
the oranges with the enthusiasm of a ferret finding a rabbit family at
home after a long day of fruitless subterranean research. Almost at the
same moment the bearded stranger stalked into the shop, and flung an
order for a pound of dates and a tin of the best Smyrna halva across the
counter. The most adventurous housewife in the locality had never heard
of halva, but Mr. Scarrick was apparently able to produce the best Smyrna
variety of it without a moment’s hesitation.
“We might be living in the Arabian Nights,” said Miss Fritten, excitedly.
“Hush! Listen,” beseeched Mrs. Greyes.
“Has the dark-faced boy, of whom I spoke yesterday, been here to-day?”
asked the stranger.
“We’ve had rather more people than usual in the shop to-day,” said Mr.
Scarrick, “but I can’t recall a boy such as you describe.”
Mrs. Greyes and Miss Fritten looked round triumphantly at their friends.
It was, of course, deplorable that any one should treat the truth as an
article temporarily and excusably out of stock, but they felt gratified
that the vivid accounts they had given of Mr. Scarrick’s traffic in
falsehoods should receive confirmation at first hand.
“I shall never again be able to believe what he tells me about the
absence of colouring matter in the jam,” whispered an aunt of Mrs. Greyes
tragically.
The mysterious stranger took his departure; Laura Lipping distinctly saw
a snarl of baffled rage reveal itself behind his heavy moustache and
upturned astrachan collar. After a cautious interval the seeker after
oranges emerged from behind the biscuit tins, having apparently failed to
find any individual orange that satisfied his requirements. He, too,
took his departure, and the shop was slowly emptied of its parcel and
gossip laden customers. It was Emily Yorling’s “day”, and most of the
shoppers made their way to her drawing-room. To go direct from a
shopping expedition to a tea party was what was known locally as “living
in a whirl”.
Two extra assistants had been engaged for the following afternoon, and
their services were in brisk demand; the shop was crowded. People bought
and bought, and never seemed to get to the end of their lists. Mr.
Scarrick had never had so little difficulty in persuading customers to
embark on new experiences in grocery wares. Even those women whose
purchases were of modest proportions dawdled over them as though they had
brutal, drunken husbands to go home to. The afternoon had dragged
uneventfully on, and there was a distinct buzz of unpent excitement when
a dark-eyed boy carrying a brass bowl entered the shop. The excitement
seemed to have communicated itself to Mr. Scarrick; abruptly deserting a
lady who was making insincere inquiries about the home life of the Bombay
duck, he intercepted the newcomer on his way to the accustomed counter
and informed him, amid a deathlike hush, that he had run out of quail
seed.
The boy looked nervously round the shop, and turned hesitatingly to go.
He was again intercepted, this time by the nephew, who darted out from
behind his counter and said something about a better line of oranges.
The boy’s hesitation vanished; he almost scuttled into the obscurity of
the orange corner. There was an expectant turn of public attention
towards the door, and the tall, bearded stranger made a really effective
entrance. The aunt of Mrs. Greyes declared afterwards that she found
herself sub-consciously repeating “The Assyrian came down like a wolf on
the fold” under her breath, and she was generally believed.
The newcomer, too, was stopped before he reached the counter, but not by
Mr. Scarrick or his assistant. A heavily veiled lady, whom no one had
hitherto noticed, rose languidly from a seat and greeted him in a clear,
penetrating voice.
“Your Excellency does his shopping himself?” she said.
“I order the things myself,” he explained; “I find it difficult to make
my servants understand.”
In a lower, but still perfectly audible, voice the veiled lady gave him a
piece of casual information.
“They have some excellent Jaffa oranges here.” Then with a tinkling
laugh she passed out of the shop.
The man glared all round the shop, and then, fixing his eyes
instinctively on the barrier of biscuit tins, demanded loudly of the
grocer: “You have, perhaps, some good Jaffa oranges?”
Every one expected an instant denial on the part of Mr. Scarrick of any
such possession. Before he could answer, however, the boy had broken
forth from his sanctuary. Holding his empty brass bowl before him he
passed out into the street. His face was variously described afterwards
as masked with studied indifference, overspread with ghastly pallor, and
blazing with defiance. Some said that his teeth chattered, others that
he went out whistling the Persian National Hymn. There was no mistaking,
however, the effect produced by the encounter on the man who had seemed
to force it. If a rabid dog or a rattlesnake had suddenly thrust its
companionship on him he could scarcely have displayed a greater access of
terror. His air of authority and assertiveness had gone, his masterful
stride had given way to a furtive pacing to and fro, as of an animal
seeking an outlet for escape. In a dazed perfunctory manner, always with
his eyes turning to watch the shop entrance, he gave a few random orders,
which the grocer made a show of entering in his book. Now and then he
walked out into the street, looked anxiously in all directions, and
hurried back to keep up his pretence of shopping. From one of these
sorties he did not return; he had dashed away into the dusk, and neither
he nor the dark-faced boy nor the veiled lady were seen again by the
expectant crowds that continued to throng the Scarrick establishment for
days to come.
* * * * *
“I can never thank you and your sister sufficiently,” said the grocer.
“We enjoyed the fun of it,” said the artist modestly, “and as for the
model, it was a welcome variation on posing for hours for ‘The Lost
Hylas’.”
“At any rate,” said the grocer, “I insist on paying for the hire of the
black beard.”