THEY HAD HEARD OF EACH OTHER.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXII, Issue XIV, 8 April 1899, Page 464

THEY HAD HEARD OF EACH OTHER.

There was a moment's silence after the introduction. Woman-like, each was mentally ‘sizing the other up.’ Then one spoke. ‘My husband frequently speaks of you,' she said. ‘lndeed,’ returned the other. ‘My husband thinks you are wonderfully clever.’ ‘Really? Why, that’s the way my husband talks about you. He told me how you reshaped and recovered that old parasol, and so saved 15/.’ ’Parasol! Why, I never touched it until my husband had harped all one day on your cleverness in upholstering and relining a perambulator at a saving of £ 2.’ Nonsense! The thing that made me do that was the way my husband talked about that parasol. Then he got me to retrim a last year’s hat because you were working over an old dress.’ ‘But I never started to do that until my husband had told me five times about your hat. I wasn’t going to. admit that you could be any more economical than I am.’ ‘Why, really, I heard of that dress twenty-four hours before I touched the hat.’ ‘lmpossible! I ’ then she stopped and her eyes began to flash. ‘I believe our husbands ,’ she began again. ‘I believe they have,’ chimed in the other, becoming excited also. ‘lt’s a wicked shame.’ ‘An outrage. They’ve just tricked us, that’s all.’ ‘lt was a regular plot. And to think how he made me work. I’ll get a new dress to-day.’ ‘And I a hat.’ The two women went into a milliner’s shop, and spent all the money they could scrape together. And the two men got mighty little for dinner that night, and when they complained. they were promptly convinced that they ought to have said nothing.