Sometimes I have waited quite a long time while some silly creature with a long upper lip and a badly balanced hat fiddles about with two tins of mustard and explains why neither will do. When it comes to my turn and the shopman says: “Pepper, m’m; yes, m’m; I’ll just show it you,” and rushes off before I can catch him, it makes me so angry that I forget all the other things I wanted. I know all that there is to be said on the other side about the advantages of shopping oneself. It is not for nothing that I have encountered the efficient female on our own ground. But if I have been flattered she has had exercise, that is one thing! Some are born housekeepers, some achieve housekeeping, and some have the horrid thing thrust upon them. They say seeing is believing, but somehow I find it impossible to believe in a tradesman even after I have seen him, and the few things I do believe about him I don’t like. The ego of the fishmonger, as well as that of his representative imp who scribbles his name daily on every available wall-space near the back door, is to me wholly uncongenial, and I dislike the exaggerated value he puts on the creatures whom he conjures from the deep. “Nice plaice,” he says, handing me a thing all face, like a certain type of person who frequents concerts and goes on deputations and boards. It has a deep frill of some scaly substance round its small body, and at one end the frill becomes a regular flounce. “Eightpence a pound. I’ll fillet it nicely for you, m’m.” By the time he has filleted away the face, and the frill, and the flounce, and half a square foot of backbone I am left with four elusive little rags that no amount of heavy breadcrumbing on Ruth’s part will make into a serviceable dish for a hungry man. “I don’t think you are right in calling plaice a nice fish,” I said the first time this happened. “Haven’t you got anything with a little more body to it?” He offered me turbot at two shillings a pound. There was certainly more of it, but it looked thoroughly wet through and uncomfortable, and he told me that the oily skin was the best part! There are all the smaller fish of course, but I cannot help watching James when he has anything with bones, it makes me as nervous as if I saw him eating a wet handkerchief full of pins.