The curate woke up in the presence of the unwinged, and saw that the
woman had left the shop.
"I did let her have the print at cost-price," Mr. Drew went on,
laughing merrily. "That was all I could venture on."
"Where was the danger?"
"Ah, you don't know so well as I do the good of having some
difficulty in getting what you need! To ease the struggles of the
poor, unless it be in sickness or absolute want, I have repeatedly
proved to be a cruel kindness."
"Then you don't sell to the poor women at cost-price always?"
"No--only to the soldiers' wives. They have a very hard life of it,
poor things!"
"That is your custom, then?"
"For the last ten years, but I don't let them know it."
"Is it for the soldiers' wives you keep your shop open so late? I
thought you were the great supporter of early closing in Glaston,"
said the curate.
"I will tell you how it happened to-night," answered the draper, and
as he spoke he turned round, not his long left ear upon the pivot of
his skull, but his whole person upon the pivot of the counter--to
misuse the word pivot with Wordsworth--and bolted the shop-door.
"After the young men had put up the shutters and were gone," he
said, returning to the counter, "leaving me as usual to bolt the
door, I fell a-thinking.
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