For reasons of economy we get all our household requisites from
Moggridge's Stores in the Tottenham Court Road, where we have a deposit
account. Joan once worked out that by shopping in this manner we saved
ninepence-halfpenny every time we spent one pound four and fivepence
(her arithmetic cannot cope with percentages), besides having our goods
delivered at the door by a motor van. This is a distinct score off our
neighbours, who have to be content with theirs being brought round by a
boy on a kind of three-wheeled Black-Maria.
We are not on the telephone at home, so it is my part of the arrangement
to ring up Moggridge's when I arrive at my office, and order what we
want; that is, whenever I remember. But unfortunately I own the most
impossible of head-pieces. It's all right to look at from the outside,
but inside the valves leak, or else the taps run. Consequently it
generally ends in Joan's writing a note when I return home in the
evening. Thus I was not altogether surprised when, one morning after
breakfast, Joan asked me to repeat her orders. I did so. "That's not
what I said!" cried Joan. "That's only what you _thought_ I said. I did
not even mention smoked salmon. Now listen while I tell you again; or,
better still, write it down on a piece of paper."
"That's no good," I said. "I always lose the paper. But go on with the
list; I've got a very good idea."
"Two pounds of Mocha coffee," she began.
I picked up two coffee beans from the tray--Joan self-grinds and
self-makes the coffee every morning--and placed them amongst the loose
change in my trouser pocket.
"Fourteen pounds of best loaf sugar," she went on.
I drew my handkerchief from my sleeve, tied a small lump of sugar in a
corner of it, and then placed it inside my hat.
"Why put it in your hat?" asked Joan.
"Because," I answered, "I may not have occasion to draw my handkerchief
from its usual place, whereas I always _have_ to take my hat off."
"How will you remember the quantity?".
"Well, fourteen pounds make one stone, don't they? Before I remember the
hard thing is a piece of sugar I shall think it's a stone."
Joan sniffed contemptuously.
"Then there's my ring," she continued, "the diamond and sapphire one
that I left for resetting. The estimate they promised has not come, and
besides there's the----"
"Hold on a minute!" I cried. "Just tie a piece of cotton round my
married finger."
She did so. Then she went on:
"The drawing-room clock should have been sent home, cleaned, last
Friday. They haven't sent it."
"Perhaps they expected it to _run down_," I suggested.
Joan bore up wonderfully, and merely said, "Well--do something. Put the
sardines in your pocket-book, or the marmalade in your gloves."
"Those," I said, "are not, strictly speaking, mnemonics for sending home
cleaned clocks. They would be all right for a picnic tea-basket, but not
for the thing in question. Everything I have done up to the present is
suggestive of what I have to remember," and I turned my watch round in
my pocket so that it faced outwards.
"I see," said Joan. "Now, what's the cotton round your finger for?"
"Smoked sa--, that is to say, coff--, I mean the estimate for your
ring," I answered. "Is there anything else?"
"Another box of stationery like the last--the crinkly paper, you know.
They've got our die."
I tore a strip from the newspaper, crinkled it carefully and put it away
in my cigarette-case. A minute later I was on my way to the
railway-station.
A keen head-wind was blowing, causing my eyes to water and the tears to
flow unbidden. I explored my sleeve for my handkerchief. It was not
there. I could not possibly go to town without one, so I hastened home
again. Joan was at the window as I ran up.
"What is it?" she cried.
"My handkerchief!" I gasped. "I've forgotten----"
"Fourteen pounds of best loaf sugar!" called out Joan. "It's in your
hat."
As I hurried once more in the direction of the station I withdrew the
handkerchief from my hat and wiped my streaming eyes. The operation
over, I placed the handkerchief in my sleeve. I heard the whistle of a
train in the distance and instinctively took out my watch. It was
right-about-face in my pocket, and I lost a good half-second in getting
it into the correct position for time-telling. It was nine-seventeen. I
had just one minute in which to do the quarter-mile; but my _forte_ is
the egg-and-spoon race, and I missed the train handsomely.
There was an interval of twenty minutes before the next one was due, so
I thought I would have a cigarette. I opened my case, and a piece of
paper fluttered to the ground. I picked it up and glanced at it. On one
side I read that "... knocked out Submarine Snooks in the ninth round
after a hotly--contested ..." while on the other side I saw that "...
condition offers the gravest anxiety to his numerous friends and ..." I
threw the paper away, for it did not interest me, and walked up to the
bookstall to select a magazine. I had to remove my left glove in order
to get at my money, and in pulling it off I noticed a shred of cotton
come away with it. This meant an inside seam gone somewhere; and they
were new gloves, too. I threw a coin to the paper-boy, and two small
round objects like boot-buttons rolled on to the platform. Shortly
afterwards the train strolled up.
At the office I was so busy all day, arranging about the shipment of a
steam-crane to Siam (I am a commission-agent), that it was not until I
was seated in the train, going home in the evening, that I vaguely
remembered that I had forgotten something. I grew more and more uneasy,
and, with the idea of distracting my thoughts from an unpleasant
channel, I picked up an evening paper from underneath the opposite seat.
At some quite recent period it had obviously contained nourishment of an
oleaginous nature, but, though soiled, it was still legible. The very
first paragraph which I read served to remind me of Joan's forgotten
orders; but it brought me, nevertheless, an unholy joy, for it ran: "The
funeral of the late Mr. Jeremiah Moggridge, founder and managing
director of the mammoth stores which bear his name, took place this
afternoon. As a mark of respect the premises were closed for business
throughout the day."
So it would have been futile to ring them up in any case. I was saved!