sold so many of any one thing, not even Build Your Own Racing Dinghy . And it was long – four hundred pages. Yet she admired her employer’s integrity and seeming excess. Florence told her that the book was already famous. ‘Everyone will have heard of it. They may not expect to be able to buy it here in Hardborough.’
‘They won’t expect to find two hundred and fifty copies. You’ve lost your head properly over this.’
They closed earlier than usual so that they could redress the window. Behind the shutters they arranged the Lolitas in pyramids, like the tins in the grocer’s. All the old Sellers were put in with the Stayers, and the dignified Illustrateds and flat books were shifted and disturbed without respect. ‘What’s all this cash in the till?’ Christine asked. ‘You’ve got a float of nearly fifty pounds in here.’ But Florence had drawn it specially, being pretty sure that she would need it all. The cashier looked up at her with suspended animation, waiting until she had left the bank to see what Mr Keble thought about it.
8
December 4 1959
Dear Mrs Green,
I am in receipt of a letter from John Drury & Co, representing their client Mrs Violet Gamart of The Stead, to the effect that your current window display is attracting so much undesirable attention from potential and actual customers that it is providing a temporary obstruction unreasonable in quantum and duration to the use of the highway, and that his client intends to establish a particular injury to herself in that it is necessary that she, as a Justice of the Peace and Chairwoman of numerous committees (list enclosed herewith) has to carry out her shopping expeditiously. In addition, the regular users of your lending library, who, you must remember, are legally in the position of invitees, have found themselves inconvenienced and in some cases been crowded or jostled and in other instances referred to by strangers to the district as old dears, old timers, old hens, and even old boilers. The civil action, which remains independent of course of anyfuture police action to abate the said nuisance, might result in the award of considerable damages against us.
Yours faithfully,
Thomas Thornton,
Solicitor and Commissioner for Oaths.
December 5 1959
Dear Mr Thornton,
You have been my solicitor now for a number of years, and I understand ‘acting for me’ to mean ‘acting energetically on my behalf’. Have you been to see the window display for yourself? We are very busy indeed on the sales side at the moment, but if you could manage the 200 yards down the road you might call into the shop and tell me what you think of it.
Yours sincerely,
Florence Green.
December 5 1959
Dear Mrs Green,
In reply to your letter of 5 December, which rather surprised me by its tone, I have endeavoured on two separate occasions to approach your front window, but found it impossible. Customers appear to be coming from as far away as Flintmarket. I think that we shall have to grant that the obstruction is unreasonable, at least as regards quantum. As to your other remarks, I would advise that it would be as wellfor you, as well as for myself, to keep a careful record of what has passed between us.
Yours faithfully,
Thomas Thornton,
Solicitor and Commissioner for Oaths.
December 6 1959
Dear Mr Thornton,
What do you advise, then?
Yours sincerely,
Florence Green.
December 8 1959
Dear Mrs Green,
In reply to your letter of 6 December, I think we ought to abate the obstruction, by which I mean stopping the general public from assembling in the narrowest part of the High Street, before any question of an indictment arises, and I also think we should cease to offer for sale the complained-of and unduly sensational novel by V. Nabokov. We cannot cite Herring v. Metropolitan Board of Works 1863 in this instance as the crowd has not assembled as the result of famine or of a shortage of necessary commodities.
Yours faithfully,
Thomas
‘They won’t expect to find two hundred and fifty copies. You’ve lost your head properly over this.’
They closed earlier than usual so that they could redress the window. Behind the shutters they arranged the Lolitas in pyramids, like the tins in the grocer’s. All the old Sellers were put in with the Stayers, and the dignified Illustrateds and flat books were shifted and disturbed without respect. ‘What’s all this cash in the till?’ Christine asked. ‘You’ve got a float of nearly fifty pounds in here.’ But Florence had drawn it specially, being pretty sure that she would need it all. The cashier looked up at her with suspended animation, waiting until she had left the bank to see what Mr Keble thought about it.
8
December 4 1959
Dear Mrs Green,
I am in receipt of a letter from John Drury & Co, representing their client Mrs Violet Gamart of The Stead, to the effect that your current window display is attracting so much undesirable attention from potential and actual customers that it is providing a temporary obstruction unreasonable in quantum and duration to the use of the highway, and that his client intends to establish a particular injury to herself in that it is necessary that she, as a Justice of the Peace and Chairwoman of numerous committees (list enclosed herewith) has to carry out her shopping expeditiously. In addition, the regular users of your lending library, who, you must remember, are legally in the position of invitees, have found themselves inconvenienced and in some cases been crowded or jostled and in other instances referred to by strangers to the district as old dears, old timers, old hens, and even old boilers. The civil action, which remains independent of course of anyfuture police action to abate the said nuisance, might result in the award of considerable damages against us.
Yours faithfully,
Thomas Thornton,
Solicitor and Commissioner for Oaths.
December 5 1959
Dear Mr Thornton,
You have been my solicitor now for a number of years, and I understand ‘acting for me’ to mean ‘acting energetically on my behalf’. Have you been to see the window display for yourself? We are very busy indeed on the sales side at the moment, but if you could manage the 200 yards down the road you might call into the shop and tell me what you think of it.
Yours sincerely,
Florence Green.
December 5 1959
Dear Mrs Green,
In reply to your letter of 5 December, which rather surprised me by its tone, I have endeavoured on two separate occasions to approach your front window, but found it impossible. Customers appear to be coming from as far away as Flintmarket. I think that we shall have to grant that the obstruction is unreasonable, at least as regards quantum. As to your other remarks, I would advise that it would be as wellfor you, as well as for myself, to keep a careful record of what has passed between us.
Yours faithfully,
Thomas Thornton,
Solicitor and Commissioner for Oaths.
December 6 1959
Dear Mr Thornton,
What do you advise, then?
Yours sincerely,
Florence Green.
December 8 1959
Dear Mrs Green,
In reply to your letter of 6 December, I think we ought to abate the obstruction, by which I mean stopping the general public from assembling in the narrowest part of the High Street, before any question of an indictment arises, and I also think we should cease to offer for sale the complained-of and unduly sensational novel by V. Nabokov. We cannot cite Herring v. Metropolitan Board of Works 1863 in this instance as the crowd has not assembled as the result of famine or of a shortage of necessary commodities.
Yours faithfully,
Thomas
Similar Books
