She pulled off one of the offending gaiters and looked at the sole. The size stamped on the sole was a size smaller than 'Thusia wore. The next day David returned the gaiters to Mr. Hardcome. Mr. Hardcome's professional smile fled as David explained. He shook his head sorrowfully as he opened the parcel and looked at the shoes. There was yellow clay on the heels and a spattering of yellow clay on the prunella.
“Too bad!” said Mr. Hardcome, still shaking his head. “She's worn them.”
“Yes; to church, yesterday,” David said. “I'm sorry,” said Mr. Hardcome, and he really was sorry, “I can't take them back. My one invariable rule; boots or shoes I sometimes exchange, but gaiters never! After they have been worn I cannot exchange gaiters.”
“But in this case,” said David, “when they were the wrong size? You remember my wife herself wrote the size on a slip. It doesn't seem, when it was not her error—”
“That, of course,” said Mr. Hardcome with a sad smile, “we cannot know. I am not likely to have made a mistake. Mrs. Dean should have tried the shoes before she wore them.”
David did not argue. He had the average man's reluctance to exchange goods, particularly when soiled, and he bought and paid for another pair, and nothing more might have come of it had 'Thusia not happened to know that old Mrs. Brown wore gaiters a size smaller than herself.
'Thusia did not give the gaiters to Mrs. Brown without first having tried to get Mr. Hardcome to take them back. She went herself. David's money must not be wasted if she could prevent it, and it is a fact that when she left Mr. Hardcome's store she left in something of a huff. She cared nothing whatever for Mr. Hardcome's rules, but she was angry to think he should suggest that she had written the wrong size on the slip of paper. Mr. Hardcome was cold and polite; he bowed her out of the store as politely as he would have bowed out Mrs. Derling or any other lady customer, but he was firm. It was natural enough that 'Thusia should tell the story to old Mrs. Brown when she gave her the gaiters.
From Mrs. Brown the story of the black prunella gaiters circulated from one lady to another, changing form like a putty ball batted from hand to hand, until it reached Mrs. Hardcome. One, or it may have been two, Sundays later David, coming down from his pulpit, found Mr. Hardcome—white-faced and nervous—waiting for him. Suspecting nothing David held out his hand. Mr. Hardcome ignored it.
“If you have one minute, Mr. Dean,” he said in the hard voice of a man who has been put up to something by his wife, “I would like to have a word with you.”
“Why, certainly,” said David.