"Why did the police shift her?" asked Priam.

"I don't know as I can tell you," said the tobacconist. "But I remember
her this twelve year."

"I only noticed her this morning," said Priam. "I saw her from my
bedroom window, coming down the Werter Road. I said to myself, 'She's
the finest old woman I ever saw in my life!'"

"Did you now!" murmured the tobacconist. "She's rare and dirty."

"I like her to be dirty," said Priam stoutly. "She ought to be dirty.
She wouldn't be the same if she were clean."

"I don't hold with dirt," said the tobacconist calmly. "She'd be better
if she had a bath of a Saturday night like other folks."

"Well," said Priam, "I want an ounce of the usual."

"Thank _you_, sir," said the tobacconist, putting down three-halfpence
change out of sixpence as Priam thanked him for the packet.

Nothing whatever in such a dialogue! Yet Priam left the shop with a
distinct feeling that life was good. And he plunged into High Street,
lost himself in crowds of perambulators and nice womanly women who were
bustling honestly about in search of food or raiment. Many of them
carried little red books full of long lists of things which they and
their admirers and the offspring of mutual affection had eaten or would
shortly eat. In the High Street all was luxury: not a necessary in the
street. Even the bakers' shops were a mass of sultana and Berlin