"How much is this bunch?" I asked of the flower-woman at the corner.
"A shilling," she replied, "but you can have it for sixpence. I hate the sight of it."
Now here was an oddity in a world of self-centred, acquisitive tradespeople: a dealer who decried her own wares. Obviously flower-women can have temperaments.
I asked her what there was about palm, as we call those branches of willow with the fluffy, downy buds on them, that so annoyed her.
"It's such stupid stuff," she explained. "I can understand people buying daffodils or tulips or violets, because they're pretty or sweet, but not this dried-up stuff with the little kittens."
The remark set me wondering to what extent dealers in other articles are perplexed by their customers' preferences. (Some milliners, I hope.) For the most part we are encouraged by the shopkeeper to follow our own inclinations. His taste may be utterly different, but he doesn't impose it on us; he ventures to suggest only when there are varying prices and we seem unduly inclined to the lowest. But this old lady was prepared, long before the bargaining stage had set in, to knock off fifty per cent. and traduce the goods as well. Surely a character.
"And that's not all," she added. "What do you think a lady—calls herself a lady—said to me just now when she bought threepenny worth? She said it lasted a year. Fancy telling a poor flower-woman that!"
We went on to talk of her calling. I found her an "agreeable blend" (as the tobacconists say) of humour and resignation; and very practical.
"Why are your flowers," I asked her, "so much better than the flowers of the man the other side of the road?"
"Because he takes his home at night," she said. "You should never do that. If I've got any unsold I leave them at the fire-station and then they're fresh in the morning. But I don't often have any left over."