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Certain Personal Matters - The Shopman · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter seventeen of Certain Personal Matters. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
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  Speaker 1: by Jordan Coriotte Certain Personal Matters by H. G.
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  Speaker 2: Wells. The Shopman.
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  Speaker 1: If I were really opulent, I would not go into
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  Speaker 1: a shop at all. I would have a private secretary.
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  Speaker 1: If I were really determined, Euphemia would do these things.
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  Speaker 1: As it is, I find buying things in a shop
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  Speaker 1: the most exasperating of all the many trying duties of life.
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  Speaker 1: I am sometimes almost tempted to declare myself adamized to
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  Speaker 1: escape it. The way the shopman eyes you as you
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  Speaker 1: enter his den, the very spread of his fingers irritate me.
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  Speaker 1: What can I have the pleasure? He says, bowing forward
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  Speaker 1: at me, and with his eye on my chin, and
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  Speaker 1: so waits.
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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 1: I hate in complete sentences and confound his pleasure. I
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  Speaker 1: don't go into a shop to give a shotman pleasure,
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  Speaker 1: but your ordinary shopman must needs pretend you delight and
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  Speaker 1: amuse him, I say, trying to display my dislike as
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  Speaker 1: plainly as possible.
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  Speaker 2: Gloves gloves, yes, sir, he says, Why should he?
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  Speaker 1: I suppose he thinks I require to be confirmed in
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  Speaker 1: my persuasion that I want gloves, calf kid, dogskin. How
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  Speaker 1: should I know the technicalities of his traffic ordinary gloves,
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  Speaker 1: I say, disdaining his petty distinctions about what price? Sir
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  Speaker 1: he asks, Now that always maddens me. Why should I
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  Speaker 1: be expected to know the price of gloves. I'm not
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  Speaker 1: a commercial traveler, nor a wholesale dealer, and I don't
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  Speaker 1: look like one, neither my constitutionally parsimonious nor petty. I'm
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  Speaker 1: a literary man, unworldly, and I were long hair and
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  Speaker 1: a soft hat and a peculiar overcoat to indicate the
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  Speaker 1: same to ordinary people.
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  Speaker 2: Why I say, should I know the price of gloves?
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  Speaker 1: I know there are some ordinary price elevenpence halfpenny, or
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  Speaker 1: three and six or seven and six, or something, one
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  Speaker 1: of those prices that everything is sold at. But for
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  Speaker 1: I don't go. Perhaps I say elevenpence halfpenny at a venture.
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  Speaker 1: His face lights up with quiet malice. Don't keep them, sir,
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  Speaker 1: he says. I can tell by his expression that I
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  Speaker 1: am ridiculously low and so being snubbed. I think of
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  Speaker 1: trying with three and six or seven and six, the
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  Speaker 1: only other probable prices for things that I know except
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  Speaker 1: a guinea and five pounds. Then I see the absurdity
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  Speaker 1: of the business, and my anger come surging up. Look here,
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  Speaker 1: I say, as bitterly as possible. I don't come here
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  Speaker 1: to play a guess in games. Never mind your prices.
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  Speaker 1: I want some gloves.
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  Speaker 2: Get me some.
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  Speaker 1: This cowsm a little, but very little, May I ask
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  Speaker 1: your sighs?
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  Speaker 2: Sir?
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  Speaker 1: He says a trifle more respectfully. One would think I
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  Speaker 1: spent all my time remembering the size of my gloves. However,
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  Speaker 1: it is no good resenting it. It's either seven or nine,
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  Speaker 1: I say, in a tired way. He just begins another question,
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  Speaker 1: and then he catches my eye and stops and goes
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  Speaker 1: away to obtain some gloves. And I get a breathe space.
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  Speaker 1: But why do they keep on with this cross examination?
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  Speaker 1: If I knew exactly what I wanted description price size.
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  Speaker 2: I should not go to a shop at all.
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  Speaker 1: It would save me such a lot of trouble just
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  Speaker 1: to send a check to the stores. The only reason
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  Speaker 1: why I go into a tradesman's shop is because I
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  Speaker 1: don't know what I want exactly, and men doubt about
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  Speaker 1: the name, or the size, or the price or the fashion,
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  Speaker 1: and want a specialist to help me. The only reason
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  Speaker 1: for having shot men instead of automatic machines is that
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  Speaker 1: one requires help in buying things.
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  Speaker 2: When I want gloves, the.
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  Speaker 1: Shopman ought to understand his business sufficiently well to know
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  Speaker 1: better than I do what particular kind of gloves I
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  Speaker 1: ought to be wearing, and what is a fair price
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  Speaker 1: for them. I don't see why I should teach him
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  Speaker 1: what is in fashion and what is not. A doctor
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  Speaker 1: does not ask you what kind of operation you want
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  Speaker 1: and what price you will pay for it. But I
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  Speaker 1: really believe these outfitter people would let me run about
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  Speaker 1: London wearing white cotton gloves and a plaid comforter without
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  Speaker 1: lifting a finger to prevent me. And by the bye,
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  Speaker 1: that reminds me of a scandalous trick. These salesmen will
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  Speaker 1: play you. Sometimes they have not the thing you want,
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  Speaker 1: and then they make you buy other things. I happen
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  Speaker 1: to have, through no fault of my own, a very
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  Speaker 1: small head, and consequently, for one long summer I wore
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  Speaker 1: a little boy's straw hat about London with the colors
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  Speaker 1: of a Paddington Board School, simply because a rascal outfitter
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  Speaker 1: hadn't my size and a proper kind of headgear, and
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  Speaker 1: induced me to buy the thing by specious representations. He
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  Speaker 1: must have known perfectly well it was not what I
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  Speaker 1: ought to wear. It seems never to enter into a
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  Speaker 1: shopman's coat of honor that he ought to do his
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  Speaker 1: best for his customer. Since that, however, I have noticed
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  Speaker 1: lots of people about who have struck me in a
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  Speaker 1: new light as triumphs of the salesman, masterpieces in the
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  Speaker 1: art of incongruity, age in the garb of youth, corpulence,
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  Speaker 1: put off with the size called slender men's, unhappy gentle
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  Speaker 1: quiet men, with ties like our flames, breasts like a Kingfisher's,
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  Speaker 1: and cataclysmal trouser patterns. Even so, if the shopkeeper had
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  Speaker 1: his will, should we all be those poor ways maiden
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  Speaker 1: ladies too, who fill us with a kind of horror
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  Speaker 1: with their juvenile curls, their girlish crudity of coloring their bonnets, giddy, tottering, hectic.
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  Speaker 1: It overcomes me with remorse to think that I myself
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  Speaker 1: have accused them of vanity and folly. It overcomes me
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  Speaker 1: with pain to hear the thoughtless laugh aloud after them
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  Speaker 1: in the public ways, for they are simply short sighted,
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  Speaker 1: trustful people, the myopic victims of the salesmen and saleswomen.
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  Speaker 1: The little children gibe at them, pelts even and somewhere
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  Speaker 1: in the world a draper goes unhung.
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  Speaker 2: However, the gloves are bought.
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  Speaker 1: I select a pair haphazard, and he pretends to perceive
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  Speaker 1: they fit perfectly by putting them over the back of
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  Speaker 1: my hands. I make him assure me of the fit,
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  Speaker 1: and then buy the pair, and proceed to take my
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  Speaker 1: old ones off and put the new on grimly if
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  Speaker 1: they split or the fingers are too long. Glove makers
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  Speaker 1: have the most erratic conceptions of the human finger. I
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  Speaker 1: have to buy another pair. But the trouble only begins
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  Speaker 1: when you have bought your thing. Nothing more, sir, He
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  Speaker 1: says nothing. I say braces. He says no, thank you.
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  Speaker 1: I say collars, cuffs. He looks at mine swiftly, but keenly,
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  Speaker 1: and with an unendurable suspicion. He goes on item after item.
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  Speaker 1: Am I in rags that I should endure this thing,
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  Speaker 1: And I get sick of my everlasting no thank you.
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  Speaker 1: The monotony shows up so glaringly against his kaleidoscope variety.
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  Speaker 1: I feel all the unutterable pettiness, the mean want of
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  Speaker 1: enterprise of my poor little purchase compared with the Catholic fling,
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  Speaker 1: he suggests. I feel angry with myself for being thus
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  Speaker 1: played upon, furiously angry with him. No, no, I say,
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  Speaker 1: these tie holders are new. He proceeds to show me
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  Speaker 1: his infernal tie holders. They prevent the tie puckering, He says,
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  Speaker 1: with his eye on mine. It's no good how much
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  Speaker 1: I say this wet sempt of further outrage. Look here,
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  Speaker 1: my man, I say, at last goaded to it. I
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  Speaker 1: came here for gloves. After endless difficulties, I at last
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  Speaker 1: induced you to let me have gloves. I have also
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  Speaker 1: been intimidated by the most shameful hints and insinuations into
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  Speaker 1: buying that beastly tie holder. I'm not a child that
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  Speaker 1: I don't know my own needs. Now will you let
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  Speaker 1: me go? How much do you want?
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  Speaker 2: That? Usually checks him.
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  Speaker 1: The above is a fair specimen of a shopman a
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  Speaker 1: favorable rendering. There are other things they do, but I
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  Speaker 1: simply cannot write about them because it irritates me so
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  Speaker 1: to think of them. One infuriating maneuver is to correct
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  Speaker 1: your pronunciation. Another is to make a terrible ado about
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  Speaker 1: your name and address, even when it is quite a
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  Speaker 1: well known name. After I've bought things at a shop,
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  Speaker 1: I am quite unfit for social intercourse. I have to
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  Speaker 1: go home and fume. There was a time when Euphemia
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  Speaker 1: would come and discuss my purchase with a certain levity.
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  Speaker 1: But on one occasion, some day, these shopmen will goad
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  Speaker 1: me too far. It's almost my only consolation, indeed, to
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  Speaker 1: think what I am going to do when I do
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  Speaker 1: break out. There's a salesman somewhere in the world. He
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  Speaker 1: going on his way, and I on mine. Who will
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  Speaker 1: I know? Prove my last straw? And maybe he will
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  Speaker 1: read this amused wrecking little of the mysteries of fate.
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  Speaker 1: Is killing a salesman murder like killing a human being.
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  Speaker 1: End of The Shopman recording by Jordan Coriotti.