He handed Hyacinth a highly-glazed packet with a picture of a handsome brown dog on it.
‘Keep it,’ said Mr. Hollywell. ‘I give away twenty or thirty of those packets every week. Now look inside. What have you? Oh, H.M.S. Majestic. That’s one of a series of photos of “Britain’s first line of defence.” Lots of people go on buying those cigarettes just to get a complete collection of the photos. We supply an album to keep them in for one and sixpence. There’s another of our makes which has pictures of actresses and pretty women. They are extraordinarily popular. They’re perfectly all right, of course, from the moral point of view, but one in every ten is in tights or sitting with her legs very much crossed, just to keep up the expectation. It’s very queer the people who go for those photos. You’d expect it to be young men, but it isn’t.’
The subject was not particularly interesting to Hyacinth, but since his companion was evidently anxious to go on talking, he asked the expected question.
‘Young women,’ said Mr. Hollywell. ‘I found it out quite by accident. I got a lot of complaints from one particular town that our cigarettes had no photos with them. I discovered after a while that a girl in one of the principal shops had hit on a dodge for getting out the photos without apparently injuring the packets. The funny thing was that she never touched the ironclads or the “Types of the soldiers of all nations,” which you might have thought would interest her, but she collared every single actress, and had duplicates of most of them. And she wasn’t an exception. Most girls goad their young men to buy these cigarettes and make collections of the photos. Queer, isn’t it? I can’t imagine why they do it.’
‘You said just now,’ said Hyacinth, ‘that latterly you hadn’t done quite so well. Did you run out of actresses and battleships?’
‘No; but one of the Irish firms took to offering prizes and enclosing coupons. You collected twenty coupons, and you got a silver-backed looking-glass—girls again, you see—or two thousand coupons, and you got a new bicycle. It’s an old dodge, of course, but somehow it always seems to pay. However, all this doesn’t matter to you. All I wanted was to show you that there is no use relying on patriotism. The thing to go in for in any business is attractive novelties, cheap lines, and, in the country shops, long credit.’
It was not very long before Hyacinth began to realize the soundness of Mr. Hollywell’s contempt for patriotism. In the town of Clogher he found the walls placarded with the advertisements of an ultra-patriotic draper. ‘Féach Annseo,’ he read, ‘The Irish House. Support Home Manufactures.’ Another placard was even more vehement in its appeal. ‘Why curse England,’ it asked, ‘and support her manufacturers?’ Try O’Reilly, the one-price man.’ The sentiments were so admirable that Hyacinth followed the advice and tried O’Reilly.
The shop was crowded when he entered, for it was market day in Clogher. The Irish country-people, whose manners otherwise are the best in the world, have one really objectionable habit. In the street or in a crowded building they push their way to the spot they want to reach, without the smallest regard for the feelings of anyone who happens to be in the way. Sturdy country-women, carrying baskets which doubled the passage room they required, hustled Hyacinth into a corner, and for a time defeated his efforts to emerge. Getting his case of samples safely between his legs, he amused himself watching the patriot shopkeeper and his assistants conducting their business. It was perfectly obvious that in one respect the announcements of the attractive placard departed from the truth: O’Reilly was not a ‘one-price man,’ He charged for every article what he thought his customers were likely to pay. The result was that every sale involved prolonged bargaining and heated argument. In most cases no harm was done. The country-women were keenly alive to the value of their money, and evidently enjoyed the process of beating down the price by halfpennies until the real value of the article was reached. Then Mr. O’Reilly and his assistants were accustomed to close the haggle with a beautiful formula:
‘To you,’ they said, with confidential smiles and flattering emphasis on the pronoun—‘to you the price will be one and a penny; but, really, there will be no profit on the sale.’
Occasionally with timid and inexperienced customers O’Reilly’s method proved its value. Hyacinth saw him sell a dress-length of serge to a young woman with a baby in her arms for a penny a yard more than he had charged a moment before for the same material. Another thing which struck him as he watched was the small amount of actual cash which was paid across the counter. Most of the women, even those who seemed quite poor, had accounts in the shop, and did not shrink from increasing them. Once or twice a stranger presented some sort of a letter of introduction, and was at once accommodated with apparently unlimited credit.