It will occur to every experienced person that the planning and carrying out of a large picnic, where the details are not confided to a public purveyor, or left to qualified servants, must be a little troublesome. But the amount of business in hurrying to and fro, consulting, fussing and wrangling, which the annual excursion caused in Friarton, among businesspeople, too, who ought to have known how to supply the provisions required with the greatest despatch and the least difficulty, offered a curious speculation to Oliver. He found it the simplest matter in the world, by a single reference to Jim Hull, and to former estimates of contributions to the entertainment, to order and send to the managing committee the quota of pies, tarts, and what Jim generalised as ‘flummery,’ with which Constable’s bakehouse had always furnished the excursionists. Why could not all the entrusted butchers, fishmongers, and grocers do the same? He must conclude that they, or their wives and daughters for them, took pleasure in first creating, and then overcoming, obstacles and objections, though Mrs. Polley asserted she was ‘that wore out’ with all she had undergone in conducting the preparations and putting down the senseless proposals of some people, that she would a deal rather have three market-days on end. The young women did not give much help, though they ran backwards and forwards incessantly between the houses of the chief managers, for three days preceding the excursion. The girls’ principal interest was absorbed by their costumes for the occasion. As they had imparted every detail to each other long before, and as they saw each other every day—both in slovenly deshabilles and what might be called smart toilettes—Oliver stupidly failed to see how the dresses could be of much consequence to anybody.