About a year ago I paid a visit to my hosier and haberdasher with the intention of purchasing a few things with which to tide over the remaining months of winter. After the preliminary discussion of atmospherics had been got through, the usual raffle of garments was spread about for my inspection. I viewed it dispassionately. Then, discarding the little vesties of warm-blooded youth and the double-width vestums of rheumatic old age, I chose several commonplace woollen affairs and was preparing to leave when my hosier and haberdasher leaned across the counter and whispered in my ear. "If I may advise you, Sir, you would be wise to make a large selection of these articles. We do not expect to replace them." He glanced cautiously at an elderly gentleman who was stirring up a box of ties, then, lowering his voice another semitone, added, "The mills are now being used exclusively for Government work." He insinuated the death-sentence effect very cleverly, and at that moment, coming to his support, as it were, the old gentleman tottered up, seized upon two garments and carried them off from under my very fingers. As he went out a middle-aged lady entered and made straight for the residue upon the counter. A feeling of panic came upon me. "Right you are," I exclaimed hurriedly, "I'll take the lot." As a matter of fact she only wanted a pair of gloves for her nephew in France. A few days later, still having the wool shortage in mind, I approached my hosier and haberdasher on the subject of shirts. For a second or two he looked thoughtfully at the toe of his boot. Then coming suddenly to a decision he disappeared stealthily into the back premises, from which he presently emerged carrying a large bale of flannel, which he cast caber-wise upon the counter. "There," he said triumphantly, "I don't suppose there's another piece of flannel like that in the country." He fingered it with an expert touch. "You don't say so," I said as I rubbed it reverently between my finger and thumb, just to show that he wasn't the only one who could do it. "I'm afraid it's only too true," he confessed, "and I may add that, after we have sold out our present stocks, flannel of any kind will be absolutely unobtainable." "None at all?" I asked, horror-struck at the vision of my public life in 1920--a bow cravat over a double-width vestum. He shook his head and smiled wisely. I am instinctively against hoarding, but I knew that if I did not buy it Jones would, and then some fine day, when nobody else had a shirt left, he would swagger about and make my life intolerable. This decided me and I bought the piece.