PART VI.
The Temple.
My dear Dorothy,—The leaving of perishable articles at houses where they have not been ordered is a very common trick, and one which often succeeds, because people imagine that they have incurred a responsibility by taking them in—which they have not.
If tradespeople choose to leave butter, milk, bread, meat, or wine, etc., which you have not ordered at your house, they do so at their own risk, and if you do not use the articles, they cannot compel you to pay for them, neither can they make you pay for them if you do use the articles under the impression that they were a gift; this last is only likely to arise in the case of wine or game being left without any indication of where it came from.
Servant girls are often inveigled into purchasing rubbishy articles, which they do not want, such as musical-boxes, silver watches, etc., by men who go about selling these things on commission, and who, refusing to take “No” for an answer, leave the article in question with the servant, saying that they will take so much a month for it.
In a day or two the girl receives a letter from the makers saying that they understand she is prepared to purchase the article in question by payment of instalments of so much per month. The chances are that the girl will be frightened into purchasing the thing in this manner; but if she writes declining to buy the article they will try to bully her into taking it by threatening legal proceedings, etc.
Girls who are treated in this manner should at once inform their master or mistress. The latter should then write to the firm, saying that their servant has no desire to purchase the article left at their house, and that if the firm want their goods back, they must come and fetch them.
Servant girls, especially Irish ones, are very fond of joining burial societies. Such girls should be careful to have a receipt for every payment they make, and should not allow themselves to be put off with vain excuses by the collector. It is the duty of the collector to give a receipt for every payment he receives, and if he fails to do so, it can only be because he is putting the money into his own pocket and not paying it over to the society.
What I told you in my former letter about bicycles not being luggage has just been confirmed by a decision of the High Court, so that railway companies are entitled to make a charge for carrying your bicycle by train, although they would take a bag of the same weight for nothing.
You cannot extend the time for paying a life assurance premium by adding the three days of grace on to the month’s grace already allowed you by the company. The three days of grace arise after the premium becomes payable and are included in the extended time given you by the company.
If you ever send in a withdrawal order to draw money out of the Post Office Savings Bank, and then find that you do not wish to take out the money because you have received some from some other source, be careful to always draw it out when you get your order, and, if you do not want to use it, pay it in again the following day.
It is most important that you should do this. If you do not do so, you leave the door open to fraud, because a duplicate withdrawal notice is sent to the post office named in your order, and some dishonest official might make use of it; and, secondly, it saves any confusion which might otherwise arise through your change of mind.
Of course I do not mean to say that the officials of the Post Office are dishonest—I should be sorry to make such a statement—but there are black sheep in every flock, and I do happen to know of a certain case in which a girl lost all her savings through not following the advice which I have just given you.
The case which I have in my mind was a particularly hard one, because the withdrawal order was for the whole amount of her banking account. And when she found that after all it was not necessary for her to close her account, it was only natural that she should think that if she did not use her withdrawal order, the money would still remain to her credit in the bank—and so it would have been if the postmaster of the country office had been an honest man; but, unfortunately for the girl, he was not. By means of the withdrawal order he succeeded in getting hold of her money and appropriating it to his own use.
Therefore, my dear Dorothy, despise not the warning of
Your affectionate cousin,
Bob Briefless.
[THREE GIRL-CHUMS, AND THEIR LIFE IN LONDON ROOMS.]
By FLORENCE SOPHIE DAVSON.