“But father,” said Alvina, “there’ll be nobody to come.”
“Plenty of people—plenty of people,” said her father. “Look at The Shakespeare’s Head, in Knarborough.”
“Knarborough! Is this Knarborough!” blurted Miss Pinnegar. “Where are the business men here? Where are the foreigners coming here for business, where’s our lace-trade and our stocking-trade?”
“There are business men,” said James. “And there are ladies.”
“Who,” retorted Miss Pinnegar, “is going to give half-a-crown for a tea? They expect tea and bread-and-butter for fourpence, and cake for sixpence, and apricots or pineapple for ninepence, and ham-and-tongue for a shilling, and fried ham and eggs and jam and cake as much as they can eat for one-and-two. If they expect a knife-and-fork tea for a shilling, what are you going to give them for half-a-crown?”
“I know what I shall offer,” said James. “And we may make it two shillings.” Through his mind flitted the idea of 1/11-1/2—but he rejected it. “You don’t realize that I’m catering for a higher class of custom—”
“But there isn’t any higher class in Woodhouse, father,” said Alvina, unable to restrain a laugh.
“If you create a supply you create a demand,” he retorted.
“But how can you create a supply of better class people?” asked Alvina mockingly.
James took on his refined, abstracted look, as if he were preoccupied on higher planes. It was the look of an obstinate little boy who poses on the side of the angels—or so the women saw it.