of boots. The man, when we entered, was busy with a chisel and hammer
opening a new crate full of boots.

George raised his hat, and said "Good-morning."

The man did not even turn round. He struck me from the first as a
disagreeable man. He grunted something which might have been
"Good-morning," or might not, and went on with his work.

George said: "I have been recommended to your shop by my friend, Mr. X."

In response, the man should have said: "Mr. X. is a most worthy
gentleman; it will give me the greatest pleasure to serve any friend of
his."

What he did say was: "Don't know him; never heard of him."

This was disconcerting. The book gave three or four methods of buying
boots; George had carefully selected the one centred round "Mr. X," as
being of all the most courtly. You talked a good deal with the
shopkeeper about this "Mr. X," and then, when by this means friendship
and understanding had been established, you slid naturally and gracefully
into the immediate object of your coming, namely, your desire for boots,
"cheap and good." This gross, material man cared, apparently, nothing
for the niceties of retail dealing. It was necessary with such an one to
come to business with brutal directness. George abandoned "Mr. X," and
turning back to a previous page, took a sentence at random. It was not a
happy selection; it was a speech that would have been superfluous made to
any bootmaker. Under the present circumstances, threatened and stifled
as we were on every side by boots, it possessed the dignity of positive