“I prefer the last word; you may have the first.”
“It is all very well to expect me to answer you, but supposing I said ‘Yes’ and you said ‘No,’ fancy how my pride would suffer!”
“But supposing I said ‘Yes’ and you said ‘No,’ picture to yourself what my feelings would be. I should not recover from the blow.”
“We have got ourselves into a difficult position,” said the Grocer. “Let us start afresh. If I wrote you a letter, how would you answer it?”
“As I thought best,” she said. “But tell me how would you write it?”
“As I thought fit,” he replied. “What would your ‘best’ be?”
“That would depend on your ‘fit’,” she answered.
The Grocer sighed and knit his brows.
“It seems very difficult to come to an understanding with you,” he said.
And then they were both silent for a long while. As a matter of fact, this was because they were both so depressed that they could think of nothing further to say.