“The idiotic presents that people give you!” he continued. “I said I’d
like Tennyson’s poems one year. They had worried me to know what I did
want. I didn’t want anything really; that was the only thing I could
think of that I wasn’t dead sure I didn’t want. Well, they clubbed
together, four of them, and gave me Tennyson in twelve volumes,
illustrated with coloured photographs. They meant kindly, of course. If
you suggest a tobacco-pouch they give you a blue velvet bag capable of
holding about a pound, embroidered with flowers, life-size. The only way
one could use it would be to put a strap to it and wear it as a satchel.
Would you believe it, I have got a velvet smoking-jacket, ornamented with
forget-me-nots and butterflies in coloured silk; I’m not joking. And
they ask me why I never wear it. I’ll bring it down to the Club one of
these nights and wake the place up a bit: it needs it.”
We had arrived by this at the steps of the ‘Devonshire.’
“And I’m just as bad,” he went on, “when I give presents. I never give
them what they want. I never hit upon anything that is of any use to
anybody. If I give Jane a chinchilla tippet, you may be certain
chinchilla is the most out-of-date fur that any woman could wear. ‘Oh!
that is nice of you,’ she says; ‘now that is just the very thing I
wanted. I will keep it by me till chinchilla comes in again.’ I give
the girls watch-chains when nobody is wearing watch-chains. When
watch-chains are all the rage I give them ear-rings, and they thank me,
and suggest my taking them to a fancy-dress ball, that being their only
chance to wear the confounded things. I waste money on white gloves with
black backs, to find that white gloves with black backs stamp a woman as
suburban. I believe all the shop-keepers in London save their old stock
to palm it off on me at Christmas time. And why does it always take
half-a-dozen people to serve you with a pair of gloves, I’d like to know?
Only last week Jane asked me to get her some gloves for that last Mansion
House affair. I was feeling amiable, and I thought I would do the thing
handsomely. I hate going into a draper’s shop; everybody stares at a man
as if he were forcing his way into the ladies’ department of a Turkish
bath. One of those marionette sort of men came up to me and said it was
a fine morning. What the devil did I want to talk about the morning to
him for? I said I wanted some gloves. I described them to the best of
my recollection. I said, ‘I want them four buttons, but they are not to
be button-gloves; the buttons are in the middle and they reach up to the
elbow, if you know what I mean.’ He bowed, and said he understood
exactly what I meant, which was a damned sight more than I did. I told
him I wanted three pair cream and three pair fawn-coloured, and the
fawn-coloured were to be swedes. He corrected me. He said I meant
‘Suede.’ I dare say he was right, but the interruption put me off, and I
had to begin over again. He listened attentively until I had finished.
I guess I was about five minutes standing with him there close to the
door. He said, ‘Is that all you require, sir, this morning?’ I said it
was.
“‘Thank you, sir,’ he replied. ‘This way, please, sir.’
“He took me into another room, and there we met a man named Jansen, to
whom he briefly introduced me as a gentleman who ‘desired gloves.’ ‘Yes,
sir,’ said Mr. Jansen; and what sort of gloves do you desire?’
“I told him I wanted six pairs altogether—three suede, fawn-coloured, and
three cream-coloured—kids.
“He said, ‘Do you mean kid gloves, sir, or gloves for children?’
“He made me angry by that. I told him I was not in the habit of using
slang. Nor am I when buying gloves. He said he was sorry. I explained
to him about the buttons, so far as I could understand it myself, and
about the length. I asked him to see to it that the buttons were sewn on
firmly, and that the stitching everywhere was perfect, adding that the
last gloves my wife had had of his firm had been most unsatisfactory.
Jane had impressed upon me to add that. She said it would make them more
careful.
“He listened to me in rapt ecstacy. I might have been music.
“‘And what size, sir?’ he asked.
“I had forgotten that. ‘Oh, sixes,’ I answered, ‘unless they are very
stretchy indeed, in which case they had better be five and
three-quarter.’
“‘Oh, and the stitching on the cream is to be black,’ I added. That was
another thing I had forgotten.
“‘Thank you very much,’ said Mr. Jansen; ‘is there anything else that you
require this morning?’
“‘No, thank you,’ I replied, ‘not this morning.’ I was beginning to like
the man.
“He took me for quite a walk, and wherever we went everybody left off
what they were doing to stare at me. I was getting tired when we reached
the glove department. He marched me up to a young man who was sticking
pins into himself. He said ‘Gloves,’ and disappeared through a curtain.
The young man left off sticking pins into himself, and leant across the
counter.
“‘Ladies’ gloves or gentlemen’s gloves?’ he said.
“Well, I was pretty mad by this time, as you can guess. It is funny when
you come to think of it afterwards, but the wonder then was that I didn’t
punch his head.
“I said, ‘Are you ever busy in this shop? Does there ever come a time
when you feel you would like to get your work done, instead of lingering
over it and spinning it out for pure love of the thing?’
“He did not appear to understand me. I said, ‘I met a man at your door a
quarter of an hour ago, and we talked about these gloves that I want, and
I told him all my ideas on the subject. He took me to your Mr. Jansen,
and Mr. Jansen and I went over the whole business again. Now Mr. Jansen
leaves it with you—you who do not even know whether I want ladies’ or
gentlemen’s gloves. Before I go over this story for the third time, I
want to know whether you are the man who is going to serve me, or whether
you are merely a listener, because personally I am tired of the subject?’
“Well, this was the right man at last, and I got my gloves from him. But
what is the explanation—what is the idea? I was in that shop from first
to last five-and-thirty minutes. And then a fool took me out the wrong
way to show me a special line in sleeping-socks. I told him I was not
requiring any. He said he didn’t want me to buy, he only wanted me to
see them. No wonder the drapers have had to start luncheon and
tea-rooms. They’ll fix up small furnished flats soon, where a woman can
live for a week.”
I said it was very trying, shopping. I also said, as he invited me, and
as he appeared determined to go on talking, that I would have a
brandy-and-soda. We were in the smoke-room by this time.
“There ought to be an association,” he continued, “a kind of
clearing-house for the collection and distribution of Christmas presents.
One would give them a list of the people from whom to collect presents,
and of the people to whom to send. Suppose they collected on my account
twenty Christmas presents, value, say, ten pounds, while on the other
hand they sent out for me thirty presents at a cost of fifteen pounds.
They would debit me with the balance of five pounds, together with a
small commission. I should pay it cheerfully, and there would be no
further trouble. Perhaps one might even make a profit. The idea might
include birthdays and weddings. A firm would do the business thoroughly.
They would see that all your friends paid up—I mean sent presents; and
they would not forget to send to your most important relative. There is
only one member of our family capable of leaving a shilling; and of
course if I forget to send to any one it is to him. When I remember him
I generally make a muddle of the business. Two years ago I gave him a
bath—I don’t mean I washed him—an india-rubber thing, that he could pack
in his portmanteau. I thought he would find it useful for travelling.
Would you believe it, he took it as a personal affront, and wouldn’t
speak to me for a month, the snuffy old idiot.”
“I suppose the children enjoy it,” I said.
“Enjoy what?” he asked.
“Why, Christmas,” I explained.
“I don’t believe they do,” he snapped; “nobody enjoys it. We excite them
for three weeks beforehand, telling them what a good time they are going
to have, over-feed them for two or three days, take them to something
they do not want to see, but which we do, and then bully them for a
fortnight to get them back into their normal condition. I was always
taken to the Crystal Palace and Madame Tussaud’s when I was a child, I
remember. How I did hate that Crystal Palace! Aunt used to superintend.
It was always a bitterly cold day, and we always got into the wrong
train, and travelled half the day before we got there. We never had any
dinner. It never occurs to a woman that anybody can want their meals
while away from home. She seems to think that nature is in suspense from
the time you leave the house till the time you get back to it. A bun and
a glass of milk was her idea of lunch for a school-boy. Half her time
was taken up in losing us, and the other half in slapping us when she had
found us. The only thing we really enjoyed was the row with the cabman
coming home.”