A Little World

by George Manville Fenn

For Jared Pellet always was loaded. No sooner did he take a weight off his shoulders than one asserted itself upon his mind. But it did not matter, he said, so long as he did not get so much more than his share. Upon the present occasion he felt like a man carrying a sheet of plate-glass down Fleet Street; for he had apples in the same pocket with the eggs, and that pocket being disposed to bulge, people would keep coming in contact, even though he used a market bunch of greens as the “ease-her-stop-her” boys do the fenders on the “Citizen” steamers to soften collision or contact with pier.

Then, too, there was Mrs Jared to protect in the crowd, for she was a very little woman; and though she would not own to it, that big basket bothered her sadly, being a regular tyrant, and, in spite of the coolness of the night, keeping her in a profuse perspiration.

It really was a brute of a basket—one of those wicker enormities with a cross handle, two flaps, and a large interior. Plenty of room when you could get anything inside; but an abomination of obstinacy, which seemed to like to have goods carried half in and half out, top-heavy fashion, with the flap lids cocked up and in the way of the handle.

And so it was upon the night in question; nothing would pack in as it should. The potatoes certainly did dive in properly when the scale was turned up; but the beef would not enter in spite of all the coaxing and contriving bestowed. No; it would not go in, but broke the wedge of fine old Cheshire all to crumbs; and there it was being carried home with the rough, red, freshly-sawed bone sticking out, and anointing with wet marrow Mrs Jared’s second-best shawl. Even the tea-paper was broken, and “Timson’s fine old family mixture” escaping in secret amongst the potatoes. However the moist sugar was safe, for it was being carried is a brown paper cone, balanced inside Jared’s hat, to the serious alarm of the two sparrows, till Jared stopped for a moment at a street corner and let them fly.

Any one with sympathetic feelings will easily understand that homely shopping under such circumstances was rather trying to the temper. Mrs Jared’s temper was tried, but it only displayed itself in slight compressions of her lips; and even this outward and visible sign of something wrong soon passed off, giving place to an air of anxiety as they passed through a by-street, where she suddenly arrested her husband.

The stopping-place was at a liberally painted shoemaker’s shop, over which, in large letters, shone the golden words, “Purkis’s Boot and Shoe Emporium,” while the gilt flourishes and bands upon the board seemed to remind the beholder strangely of the beadle’s uniform and wand of office.

“Hallo!” exclaimed Jared, waking up from a dream of Farmer’s Gloria in Excelsis, “What do you want here?”

“Only to tell Mr Purkis to send for Totty’s little boots,” said Mrs Jared.

Jared was satisfied, and they entered, sending a small bell hung upon the half door into a very rage of ringing, to summon attendance, although the owner of the establishment was ponderously taking the measure of a customer’s foot, by means of a long slip of paper and a sliding rule, slowly the while making entries upon the said white slip, and afterwards smearing them out and re-writing them. The next minute, though, he had fallen into a state of doubt, and measured again, till, in his confusion, he not only made himself extremely inky, but blotted his customer’s white stockings.

But at last Mr Purkis had finished, sighed relief, dismissed the measured lady, with a promise very doubtful of fulfilment, taken off his glasses, and then turned to welcome his visitors, Mr Jared Pellet, organist of his (Mr Purkis’s) church, being a customer held by him in some reverence.