other lady is grieved at human obstinacy and stupidity in general.
If the owner of the cauliflower had had any sense she would have
asked four sous. Eventually business is done at five.

It is the custom everywhere abroad--asking the price of a thing is
simply opening conversation. A lady told me that, the first day she
began housekeeping in Florence, she handed over to a poulterer for a
chicken the price he had demanded--with protestations that he was
losing on the transaction, but wanted, for family reasons,
apparently, to get rid of the chicken. He stood for half a minute
staring at her, and then, being an honest sort of man, threw in a
pigeon.

Foreign housekeepers starting business in London appear hurt when our
tradesmen decline to accept half-a-crown for articles marked three-
and-six.

"Then why mark it only three-and-sixpence?" is the foreign
housekeeper's argument.



SHOULD MARRIED MEN PLAY GOLF?



That we Englishmen attach too much importance to sport goes without
saying--or, rather, it has been said so often as to have become a
commonplace. One of these days some reforming English novelist will
write a book, showing the evil effects of over-indulgence in sport: