A few days later it occurred to me that it might be advisable to lay down some socks. My idea was in perfect unison with that of my hosier and haberdasher. Socks were going to be unprocurable in a few months. I patted myself on the back and bought up the 1916 vintage of Llama-Llama footwear. The following week thirty-seven shirts arrived and I had to buy a new chest-of-drawers. This, as I have stated before, was about a year ago. Yesterday I paid my hosier and haberdasher another visit. If all the bone factories had not been too exclusively engaged, etc., etc., I wished to buy a collar stud. There was an elderly man standing in the shop. He was quite alone, contemplating a mountain of garments. There were little vesties, double-width vestums, and ordinary woollen affairs. You could have knocked me over with a dress-sock. And where was my hosier and haberdasher? Had the stranger--just awakened to the value of his possessions--entered the shop and suddenly cast all this treasure upon the counter? I imagined the shock of this procedure on a man like my hosier and haberdasher, whose heart was perhaps a trifle woolly. Had he collapsed? I glanced surreptitiously behind a parapet of clocked socks. A moment later, from somewhere in the back premises, he appeared carrying a large bale of flannel, which he cast caber-wise upon the counter. I was dumbfounded. Then I knew the truth. "Sir," I said, turning to the stranger, "I believe you are about to make a selection from these articles (I indicated them individually), which you imagine to be the last of their race?" He nodded at me in a bewildered sort of way. "In a few months," I continued remorselessly, "they will be absolutely unprocurable" (he gave a start of recognition), "and you, having bought them, will sneak through life with the feelings of a food-hoarder, mingled with those of the man who slew the last Camberwell Beauty. I know the state of mind. But you need not distress yourself. These garments (I indicated them again) will only be unprocurable because they are in your possession. I have about half-a-ton myself, which, until a few minutes age, would have been quite unprocurable. But I have changed my mind and, if you will come with me, you can take your choice with a clear conscience, and (I glanced maliciously at my faded hosier and haberdasher) at the prices which were prevalent a year ago." I linked my arm with that of the stranger, and together we passed out of the shop into the unpolluted light of day. * * * * * [Illustration: _Mother (to child who has been naughty)._ "AREN'T YOU RATHER ASHAMED OF YOURSELF?" _Child._ "WELL, MOTHER, I WASN'T. BUT NOW THAT YOU'VE SUGGESTED IT I AM."] * * * * * PRETENDING.