e lady's
representation of my few words, and I make a mental note to keep away
from his stall. All at once another lady, who for some obscure reason
is carrying a bucket, grips me by the arm.

"I'm goin' to 'ave the law on my side, I am," she declares
emphatically, "an' then I'll smash 'is bloomin' fice in."

I am swayed towards a fruit-stall.

"Look at them," says the irate lady, holding out three potatoes.
"Rotten--at thrippence a pound. My 'usband 'e'd 'ave set abaht me if
I'd give 'im them for 'is dinner."

The fruiterer takes a lofty moral standard. "I sold yer them fer seed
pertaters, I did. If yer 'usband eats them 'e's worse than a Un."

"Seed pertaters, was they? Where was I to grow 'em? In a mug on the
mantelpiece?"

"'Ow was I ter know yer 'adn't a 'lotment?"

"You'll need no 'lotment. It's a cemet'ry you'll want when my 'usband
knows you've called 'im a Un."

"Now, now," I interpose tactfully. "Perhaps you can exchange them,
then you'll have the lady for a regular customer."

"I don't want the blighter fer a reglar customer," says the fruiterer.

Three potatoes whirl past me at the fruiterer. The lady with the
bucket departs rapidly.

"Lemme get at 'er," cries the irate fruiterer.

"You wouldn't hit a woman," I protest.

"Wouldn't I?" says the infuriated fruiterer.

I interpose--verbally. "You'll get everything stolen," I say, "from
your stall if you leave it."

"I'll leave you in charge."

"I'm needed down my beat," I reply, and stalk on instantly, leaving a
sadly disillusioned man behind me.

I reach a queue outside a grocer's shop.

"There now," says a stout lady, "give 'er in charge."

The queue all speak at once.

"She's a 'oarder, she is. Got 'arf-a-pound o' sugar already in 'er
basket and only 'erself and 'er 'usband at 'ome, while I got five
kids."

A lady down the queue caps this with seven kids, and in the distance a
lady in a fur cap claims ten, and is at once engaged by her neighbours
in a bitter controversy as to whether three in France should count in
sugar buying.

All the time the hoarder stands with nose in the air, the picture of
lofty indifference.

Tact--tact--I remember the Inspector's advice.

"Excuse me, Madam," I say, "but in these times we all have to make
sacrifices. You already have sugar. Some of your friends have none.
Under the circumstances--"

Slowly the lady turns a withering eye on me. "I'll move nowhere no'ow
for nobody."

A lady in the