SHOPPING

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6441, 22 January 1924, Page 2

SHOPPING

(By'Hamer, in the Sydney Sun.)

As, I was waiting, 1 myself -outside the shop,, I noticed the little man—he seemed such an inadequate little man for. the mountain of parcels he was holding. But he bore them with fortitude and patience. I noticed again when the massive looking woman came out of the shop and added some extra parcels to his load. “They do you waiting in these shops! I must have been in that blessed, place for 3Q minutes,” said the woman, irritably. “Three-quarters of an hour,” my dear,” said the little man patiently, glancing at a nearby clock. So he had been waiting all that time! I felt a sympathy for the poor little man with his load, as staggering under he moved off by his wife’s side. But she suddenly darted aside to look at the window of the next shop. “Wait a minute, John,” she commanded, “there’s something here I want to see.”

He was still waiting patiently in the offing with his pile of parcels when I was annexed myself. When half an hour later I met him again, a block further on—-we had sundaed in the meantime—he was once more by himself, and waiting with the old meek patience, with his parcels grown till they knocked the rim of his hat and were pendent also by string from his fingers. As I came upon him the lady reappeared, ■ and, finding no place to stow her latest' parcel, carried it herself. They moved ahead of us, the woman’s eagle eye sweeping the shop ahead. They contained nothing of interest to the feminine eye—a tobacconist’s, a fish shop, and a hotel. Her step suddenly increased, and she turned round sharply, “For heaven’s sake, John, don’t dawdle!” she cried. “You know how tired this shopping makes me. I have wondered, whether he snapped before he got home; certainly his patience never will.