“Oh, has she?” said Polly, “what fun! I shall look out for it. Is it very new?”
“Well, no,” Miss Price said hesitatingly, “the new styles would hardly suit Mrs. Beehive. She is all shapes and sizes, you would think, according to the weather.”
Polly sopped this up like nectar, and retailed it to Reginald when she got home. “Great Scot!” he said, “I hope Beehive doesn’t go and look over my waistcoats at the tailor’s, and ask the fitter how much he has let out since last year. What curious creatures you are.”
“It’s all right,” said Polly, “I love to know beforehand what people are going to wear, and then I know what to avoid.”
“But I think you told me that Miss Price said she couldn’t make it?” said Reginald.
“Oh, that is just a little nervous habit of hers,” Polly assured him, “like nice-mannered people wanting to be pressed to a second helping. Would you believe it if your tailor said he hadn’t time to make you a new coat?”
“I never heard of any tailor saying such a thing,” Reginald replied.
“No, of course not,” retorted Polly contemptuously, “because you order your clothes in March, and they come home the year after next. I might undertake to make you a pair of boots if I could wait to deliver them until after you were dead. And I don’t suppose you ever complain, do you?”
“Oh yes,” said Reginald. “Haven’t you seen boys tearing along the Exchange with large cardboard boxes under their arms? If you got on to the Flags you would find the place littered with tissue paper, and Beehive, and Henry and I trying on each other’s trousers. That means that we complained of the delay and sent a boy to fetch the things at once.”
