For hours and sometimes days I waited with my feet sinking deeper and deeper into the carpet for Buyers who had just gone on holiday, were just going, were in London, Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, Rome, Zurich or the ladies’ powder room; had a cold, had been dismissed or had not yet been appointed; were having coffee, an affair with the Managing Director, a baby (so rare an excuse that even I was satisfied); had not yet started to buy, had finished buying, had over-bought; didn’t want anything until after the Budget, Christmas, Easter, The Funeral (in the better end of the trade the decease of Royalty was always unseasonable); thought the clothes too expensive, too old-fashioned, too smart for the provinces or just didn’t like them. Hemmed in by subterfuge I almost grew to love the ones who didn’t like them and said so. It is not a business renowned for candour. I called on the Buyer of one London Store for five years without seeing anything but her feet protruding from under a screen.
