"I'm goin' to 'ave the law on my side, I am," she declares emphatically, "an' then I'll smash 'is bloomin' fice in." I am swayed towards a fruit-stall. "Look at them," says the irate lady, holding out three potatoes. "Rotten--at thrippence a pound. My 'usband 'e'd 'ave set abaht me if I'd give 'im them for 'is dinner." The fruiterer takes a lofty moral standard. "I sold yer them fer seed pertaters, I did. If yer 'usband eats them 'e's worse than a Un." "Seed pertaters, was they? Where was I to grow 'em? In a mug on the mantelpiece?" "'Ow was I ter know yer 'adn't a 'lotment?" "You'll need no 'lotment. It's a cemet'ry you'll want when my 'usband knows you've called 'im a Un." "Now, now," I interpose tactfully. "Perhaps you can exchange them, then you'll have the lady for a regular customer." "I don't want the blighter fer a reglar customer," says the fruiterer. Three potatoes whirl past me at the fruiterer. The lady with the bucket departs rapidly. "Lemme get at 'er," cries the irate fruiterer. "You wouldn't hit a woman," I protest. "Wouldn't I?" says the infuriated fruiterer. I interpose--verbally. "You'll get everything stolen," I say, "from your stall if you leave it." "I'll leave you in charge." "I'm needed down my beat," I reply, and stalk on instantly, leaving a sadly disillusioned man behind me. I reach a queue outside a grocer's shop. "There now," says a stout lady, "give 'er in charge." The queue all speak at once. "She's a 'oarder, she is. Got 'arf-a-pound o' sugar already in 'er basket and only 'erself and 'er 'usband at 'ome, while I got five kids." A lady down the queue caps this with seven kids, and in the distance a lady in a fur cap claims ten, and is at once engaged by her neighbours in a bitter controversy as to whether three in France should count in sugar buying. All the time the hoarder stands with nose in the air, the picture of lofty indifference. Tact--tact--I remember the Inspector's advice. "Excuse me, Madam," I say, "but in these times we all have to make sacrifices. You already have sugar. Some of your friends have none. Under the circumstances--" Slowly the lady turns a withering eye on me. "I'll move nowhere no'ow for nobody." A lady in the background suggests that the female should be boiled in a sugar-sack. A more humane person expresses the hope that she will be bombed that night. "But, Madam, consider your friends," I proceed. "Don't you call that lot my friends! I'm 'ere fer a pound of marge, and get it I will if all the bloomin' speshuls come 'oo 're doin' reglar coppers outer jobs." Public opinion in the queue takes a sudden turn. One lady remarks that these speshuls are that interfering. Another alleges that she has no doubt I have sacks of sugar at home. I remember the Inspector's counsel about moving on, and move myself on. There is one man in England who proclaims himself absolutely unfitted to fill the Food-Controller's position. I am that modest person.