Hepplestall's

CONTENTS

RUMMAGING at a bargain-counter, I came across an object which puzzled me, and, turning to the shopman, I asked him what it was. He took it up contemptuously. “That,” he said. “Dear me, I thought I’d put it in the dust-bin. It’s fit for nothing but destruction.”
“And you call it?” I persisted. “I call it by its name,” he said. “It’s an outworn passion, and a pretty frayed one too. Look at that!”
I watched him pull gently at the passion and it came apart like mildewed fabric. “There’s no interest in that,” he said. “That never led to a murder or a divorce, a feeble fellow like that. If it ever got as far as the First Offenders’ Court, I shall be surprised.”
“Yet it looks old,” I said. “In its youth, perhaps—”
He examined it more closely. “I don’t think it’s a love passion at all,” he said, shaking his head. “My suppliers are getting very careless.”
“You wouldn’t care to give me their address?” I coaxed.
He threw the passion down angrily. “This is a shop,” he said. “I’m here to sell, not to make presents of my trade secrets.”
I apologized. “Of course,” I said, “I will always deal through you. And as to this passion, what is the price of that?”