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I. THE PRINCIPAL CHARACTER IN THE STORY
If you (presuming you are of the sex that does such things)--if you had
gone into the Drapery Emporium--which is really only magnificent for
shop--of Messrs. Antrobus & Co.--a perfectly fictitious "Co.," by
the bye--of Putney, on the 14th of August, 1895, had turned to the
right-hand side, where the blocks of white linen and piles of blankets
rise up to the rail from which the pink and blue prints depend, you
might have been served by the central figure of this story that is now
beginning. He would have come forward, bowing and swaying, he would
have
extended two hands with largish knuckles and enormous cuffs over the
counter, and he would have asked you, protruding a pointed chin and
without the slightest anticipation of pleasure in his manner, what he
might have the pleasure of showing you. Under certain circumstances--as,
for instance, hats, baby linen, gloves, silks, lace, or curtains--he
would simply have bowed politely, and with a drooping expression, and
making a kind of circular sweep, invited you to "step this way,"
and so led you beyond his ken; but under other and happier
conditions,--huckaback, blankets, dimity, cretonne, linen, calico, are
cases in point,--he would have requested you to take a seat, emphasising
the hospitality by leaning over the counter and gripping a chair back in
a spasmodic manner, and so proceeded to obtain, unfold, and exhibit
his goods for your consideration. Under which happier circumstances you
might--if of an observing turn of mind and not too much of a housewife
to be inhuman--have given the central figure of this story less cursory
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