"WANTED IMMEDIATELY!
Medical Doctor
for Joe Batt's Arm and vicinity. Salary two thousand dollars guaranteed. All specials additional. Address communication to
Alex. Coffin,
Sec. Doctor's Committee."
Newfoundland Paper.
Even the serious condition of Joe Batt's Arm hardly interests us so much as the challenge to the world's humourists implied in the Committee's selection of their secretary.
MY ONE ADMIRER.
Of course my wife had made me go to the bazaar. All men go to bazaars either because their wives send them, or in search of possible wives. The men who are never at bazaars are those with humane wives, or the true bachelors.
I did not mind the young lady who grabbed my walking-stick and presented me with a shilling cloakroom ticket, or the other who placed a buttonhole in my coat (two-and-sixpence), or the third who sprayed me with scent (one shilling, but had I known of the threatened attack I would have paid two shillings for immunity), or the fourth, who snatched my rather elderly silk hat and renovated it, not before its time, with some mysterious fluid (one-and-ninepence). These are the things one expects.
But when I faced the stalls I must admit that I trembled. In pre-war days it was occasionally hinted that bazaar prices were a trifle high. What would they be now? How could I face the Bazaar profiteer? Sums, reminding me of schooldays, ran in my head, "If milk be a shilling a quart what will be the price of a sofa-cushion?"
As I stood in the centre of the hall I could see that the eyes of the stall-holders were upon me—cold, horrid, calculating eyes. I could read in them, "How much has this man got?" I felt that it would be a proper punishment for war-profiteers if they were sentenced to purchase all their requirements at bazaars for six months.