The Sex That Doesn't Shop

by H.H. Munro (SAKI)

　　

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The opening of a large new centre for West End shopping,particularly feminine shopping, suggests the reflection, Do womenever really shop? Of course, it is a well-attested fact that theygo forth shopping as assiduously as a bee goes flower-visiting, butdo they shop in the practical sense of the word? Granted the money,time, and energy, a resolute course of shopping transactions wouldnaturally result in having one's ordinary domestic needs unfailinglysupplied, whereas it is notorious that women servants (andhousewives of all classes) make it almost a point of honour not tobe supplied with everyday necessities. "We shall be out of starchby Thursday," they say with fatalistic foreboding, and by Thursdaythey are out of starch. They have predicted almost to a minute themoment when their supply would give out and if Thursday happens tobe early closing day their triumph is complete. A shop where starchis stored for retail purposes possibly stands at their very door,but the feminine mind has rejected such an obvious source forreplenishing a dwindling stock. "We don't deal there" places it atonce beyond the pale of human resort. And it is noteworthy that,just as a sheep-worrying dog seldom molests the flocks in his nearneighbourhood, so a woman rarely deals with shops in her immediatevicinity. The more remote the source of supply the more fixed seemsto be the resolve to run short of the commodity. The Ark hadprobably not quitted its last moorings five minutes before somefeminine voice gloatingly recorded a shortage of bird-seed. A fewdays ago two lady acquaintances of mine were confessing to somemental uneasiness because a friend had called just before lunch-time, and they had been unable to ask her to stop and share theirmeal, as (with a touch of legitimate pride) "there was nothing inthe house." I pointed out that they lived in a street that bristledwith provision shops and that it would have been easy to mobilise avery passable luncheon in less than five minutes. "That," they saidwith quiet dignity, "would not have occurred to us," and I felt thatI had suggested something bordering on the indecent.But it is in catering for her literary wants that a woman's shoppingcapacity breaks down most completely. If you have perchanceproduced a book which has met with some little measure of success,you are certain to get a letter from some lady whom you scarcelyknown to bow to, asking you "how it can be got." She knows the nameof the book, its author, and who published it, but how to get intoactual contact with it is still an unsolved problem to her. Youwrite back pointing out that to have recourse to an ironmonger or acorn-dealer will only entail delay and disappointment, and suggestan application to a bookseller as the most hopeful thing you canthink of. In a day or two she writes again: "It is all right; Ihave borrowed it from your aunt." Here, of course, we have anexample of the Beyond-Shopper, one who has learned the Better Way,but the helplessness exists even when such bypaths of relief areclosed. A lady who lives in the West End was expressing to me theother day her interest in West Highland terriers, and her desire toknow more about the breed, so when, a few days later, I came acrossan exhaustive article on that subject in the current number of oneof our best known outdoor-life weeklies, I mentioned thatcircumstance in a letter, giving the date of that number. "I cannotget the paper," was her telephoned response. And she couldn't. Shelived in a city where newsagents are numbered, I suppose, by thethousand, and she must have passed dozens of such shops in her dailyshopping excursions, but as far as she was concerned that article onWest Highland terriers might as well have been written in a missalstored away in some Buddhist monastery in Eastern Thibet.The brutal directness of the masculine shopper arouses a certaincombative derision in the feminine onlooker. A cat that spreads oneshrew-mouse over the greater part of a long summer afternoon, andthen possibly loses him, doubtless feels the same contempt for theterrier who compresses his rat into ten seconds of the strenuouslife. I was finishing off a short list of purchases a fewafternoons ago when I was discovered by a lady of my acquaintancewhom, swerving aside from the lead given us by her godparents thirtyyears ago, we will call Agatha."You're surely not buying blotting-paper HERE?" she exclaimed in anagitated whisper, and she seemed so genuinely concerned that Istayed my hand."Let me take you to Winks and Pinks," she said as soon as we wereout of the building: "they've got such lovely shades of blotting-paper--pearl and heliotrope and momie and crushed--""But I want ordinary white blotting-paper," I said."Never mind. They know me at Winks and Pinks," she repliedinconsequently. Agatha apparently has an idea that blotting-paperis only sold in small quantities to persons of known reputation, whomay be trusted not to put it to dangerous or improper uses. Afterwalking some two hundred yards she began to feel that her tea was ofmore immediate importance than my blotting-paper."What do you want blotting-paper for?" she asked suddenly. Iexplained patiently."I use it to dry up the ink of wet manuscript without smudging thewriting. Probably a Chinese invention of the second century beforeChrist, but I'm not sure. The only other use for it that I canthink of is to roll it into a ball for a kitten to play with.""But you haven't got a kitten," said Agatha, with a feminine desirefor stating the entire truth on most occasions."A stray one might come in at any moment," I replied.Anyway, I didn't get the blotting-paper.

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