The more remote the source of supply the more fixed seems
to be the resolve to run short of the commodity. The Ark had
probably not quitted its last moorings five minutes before some
feminine voice gloatingly recorded a shortage of bird-seed. A few
days ago two lady acquaintances of mine were confessing to some
mental uneasiness because a friend had called just before lunch-
time, and they had been unable to ask her to stop and share their
meal, as (with a touch of legitimate pride) "there was nothing in
the house." I pointed out that they lived in a street that bristled
with provision shops and that it would have been easy to mobilise a
very passable luncheon in less than five minutes. "That," they said
with quiet dignity, "would not have occurred to us," and I felt that
I had suggested something bordering on the indecent.
But it is in catering for her literary wants that a woman's shopping
capacity breaks down most completely. If you have perchance
produced a book which has met with some little measure of success,
you are certain to get a letter from some lady whom you scarcely
known to bow to, asking you "how it can be got." She knows the name
of the book, its author, and who published it, but how to get into
actual contact with it is still an unsolved problem to her. You
write back pointing out that to have recourse to an ironmonger or a
corn-dealer will only entail delay and disappointment, and suggest
an application to a bookseller as the most hopeful thing you can
think of.
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