"Why?" she asked.
"I'm very sorry, ma'am," he said hurriedly; "but you see, I wasn't sure that there was any one in the house yet. I'll always come to the back door in the future."
It turned out that he was a grocer's man, and his boss had been recommended to us by an Anglo-Australian acquaintance of ours in the village.
"Would you be pleased to give an order, ma'am?" he asked.
"Oh, yes," said the wife.
"Thank yer, ma'am," he said briskly, getting out his pocket-book and pencil. "What would you be pleased to want, ma'am ? I'll take it down, ma'am."
She gave the order from a list she had.
"Three pounds of loaf-sugar."
Grocer's man, taking it down, "Thank yer, ma'am."
"Three pounds of moist."
"Thank yer, ma'am!"
"One pound of fresh butter."
"Thank yer, ma'am!"
"Two pounds of rice."
"Thanky, mum!"
"One packet of Sunlight soap."
"Thanky, mum!"
"Two pieces of blue."
"Thanky, mum!"
And so on with the soda, starch, borax, etc., to the end of a long list.
"Anything more, mum?"
