Cuteness Behind the Counter.

Otago Witness, Issue 2200, 30 April 1896, Page 52

Cuteness Behind the Counter.

" Tact, sir ? Why we have to be made of it. You would hardly believe if I were to tell you the numerous peculiar schemes on the p»rb of our customers we have to fathom at a wink or a nod aud immed'At-ly fall in with," declared an assistaut at a West-cad milliner's with whom the writer recently had a ohat. " Wh^n I was in my last situation I made quite]a friend of a wealthy customer simply by a little display of tact, and when I left, she, as I may say, went with me and transferred her patroange to my present establishment. " She was posses*ed, you must know, of enormously large hands, and when bnjhig gloves used always to choosa a time when, bo one else tvas near.

" One day, however, just as she had announced : 1 1 want a pair of slate Suede gloves, please,' and I was taking down the boxes containing them, up marched tv»o ladies — friends of hers —and, to her discomfiture, joined her at the counter.

"The poor lady turned a perfect crimson, looking at me in agony ; but, equal to the occa si"n: 'Six and a quaiter, madam,' said I. •Certainly. There they" are. And the next thing, please P ' "Bhe # paid for the gloves and took them away, returning next: m >ruing for some . f her proper size, and, though she never expresbed her thanks verbally, her increased custom and regular iuquiry for me to serve her showed how she »ppr< ciated my ready re^nrce.

" Two days ago an effluent army man came in with his wife to make some purct ases, ths latter h&v>ng paid us a previous visit a week earlier aud taken a very expensive hat. ~"«" They looked at a lot of things, including a ten guinea jacket, which evidently had taken the lady's fancy. " ♦ But it is rather too expensive,' said Bhe plaintively. " • Not a bifcjof it, my dear,' said her husband, evideutly in a good humour tlut morning. • You admire it and shall have it. Would you like a hat to match ? '

" Nooriles-t to say, the delighted lady readily fell in wi 1- *>• |>roptis»l, and selei v t-.d an elegai t bumi n v y f'Xjeosive hat, very nvioh like the etyli h out she had purchased a week before, the while her husband looked on carel^Sßly, humming a tune. "As they were leaving — • Oh, dear me ! ' I heard her exclaim to her husband, 'I've left one of my gloves behind.' " Back she c*nie runr.iug, prettnded to snatch the missing article from. the counter, and, leaning towards me as she did *o, said — >

' " * Send me the bill for this hat, aud put the other in the account with the jacket.' "