Mr. Pumfrey’s Purchase.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3, 17 July 1912, Page 61

Mr. Pumfrey’s Purchase.

By

JOHN K. LEYS.

IT was dusk, and outside a drizzling rain was falling. The house was very still, for upstairs Mrs. Pumfrey lay dying of pneumonia. Her husband stood at the window of the sitting-room, gazing out into the wet street. The doctor had just left him, after telling him that he must not be surprised if “something happened” during the night. 'Mr. Pumfrey was sad, but, still more his feeling was what people call “lost”- —a bewildered sensation, as of a man who deos not know his bearings. Life without the sensible, clear-headed women who had been at his side night and day for the last forty years—he could not imagine how it would be. Mr. Pumfrey had been a London grocer, but finding that he was getting on in years, and that younger men were passing him in the race, he had wisely retired and settled down in Camberwell to live on the money he had saved. But for the companionship of his wife, his days would have been intolerably tedious. They had followed a daily habit of taking a walk between the hours of four and five in the afternoon, and since the beginning of his wife’s illness he had kept up the custom, more because it was their custom- than from any desire for exercise. Jt was now the hour for his daily stroll, and mechanically he turned from the window and went out into the hall, and put on his hat and overcoat. Merely pausing to send word to the nurse that he would be back in less than an hour, he took his umbrella and went out into the rain. The quiet little street in which they lived was but a short distance from one of the great second class London thoroughfares, lined with large shops whose spacious windows made the

street resemble a corridor in an international exhibition. At one or other of these shops there was generally a sale going on; and it was one of the favourite amusements of Mr. and Mrs. Pumfrey to visit such shops, go conscientiously through the sale catalogues, and if possible, help out their modest income by purchasing at the reduced prices such articles as they would require within the next few months. Not till he had reached this street of shops did Mr. Pumfrey notice that he had not remembered to change for winter boots the pair of old summer shoes -which he wore indoors. His wife if she Ifiid been with him. would have, insisted, he well knew, on his going home and changing them at onee. But she was not there, and with a faint satisfaction at' the thought that he was free to do as he chose, he turned into the wide thoroughfare anil passed along the line of shop windows, glancing in at them as he went along. At one of these windows he stopped, merely from idle curiosity. It was the window of a large multiple shop or “stores,” and presently he found himself gazing with awakening interest at a quantity' of mourning paper and envelopes marked at an absurdly low figure. Large labels invited passers-by to observe that this particular ‘'line” was of really first-class quality, and was being offered at such a price that intending purchasers must apply at once. Never again would they find such an opportunity of laying in a stock of writing paper at a reduetion of forty-five per cent on the normal selling price. Mr. Pumfrey would have been a ready purchaser, fur lie knew that the supply of note-paper at home was running low, but this paper hail a deep black border, nnd was, therefore, quite unsuitable Suddenly he recollected. If what the doctor had told him Was correct, his next

purchase of note-paper would have to be yf exactly this description. It would be just what he would want, and if he bought it now, the saving, even on a single ream, would be considerable. But he could not buy it yet not just yet. Perhaps to-morrow No. A mighty placard informed him in large red capitals that this was posi lively the last day of the sale. "To-iuor row would be too late. Still, he told himself it would not be right or decent to buy mourning paper until he had actually become a widower; and he turned away from the great plate-glass window with a sigh of regret. But before he had taken many steps his business instincts reasserted themselves. If it was morally certain that by till time to-morrow he would be buying that paper at an advance of forty-five per cent, on the price now asked, it was surely foolish to allow mere sentiment to prevent him from making the purchase at the reduced figure. He went slowly back to the shop, still hesitating. Then he stood quite a long time at the window, trying to make up his mind. He found it difficult, for business and sentiment have no common denominator.

Finally he resolved that he would look at the paper. He went into the shop, inspected a sample, and was so convinced of the genuineness of the bar gain that he there and then ordered two reams and 'a thousand envelopes, paying for them on the spot. When he reached home it was quite dark, his umbrella was dripping with wet, and he was shivering. If Mrs. Pumfrey had been at her usual post she would have seen to it that he changed his shoes, but he did not. lie shivered once, or twice during the evening, and when he went to bed he hail sometleing of a sore throat.

In the morning his throat was worse, and the doctor advised him to remain in bed for the day. He was cheered, however, by the news that his wife was slightly better. Next day the doctor looked very grave when he came out of John Pumfrey’s room, and the housemaid, happening to come down-stairs as the doctor and the nurse were exchanging a few words on the landing, told the cook that she was sure that she had heard him him say “diphtheria.” Another nurse was sent for, and all was done for Mr. Pumfrey that science and care could do, but the disease was severe; his vitality was low; and within a fortnight he had passed away. Meantime Mrs. Pumfrey had been slowly recovering. A week after tier husband’s funeral she came down-stairs for the first time. On a chair in the hall lay a large brown-paper parcel. “Well, I never!” she exclaimed to Anne, the housemaid, for want of a better listener. “If this isn’t just the very thing 1 was thinking 1 would have to send you out for. I quite forgot to order some, being forbidden by doctor’s orders to write letters. This will last me for a long while. But who ean have ordered it! I’m sure 1 never did. Did you?” “No, ma’am. I wouldn’t take it on me to do such a thing.” The widow looked at the invoice, to see whether it would offer any explanation of the mystery. It was dated the nineteenth of November. “Why,” said Mrs. Pumfrey, counting on her fingers—“if that 'isn’t the very day your master was took unwell! It was a Friday, and the doctor told me he had given me up.” She stopped abruptly, for the coin cidenee was illuminative, and she understood. The bill, too, was eloquent in its moderation. ■She quite understood; but she did not feel at all bitter toward her deceased husband. She took a sheet of paper, felt it appreciatively between her finger and thumb, then spread it out on the blotter before her and <1 j ped her pen in the ink. “Poor John!” she murmured. “He was always so careful!”