Mrs. Nicolson is the presiding genius of the bakery; she is more--she is the bakery itself. A Mr. Nicolson there is, and he is known to be the baker, but he dwells in the regions below the shop and only issues at rare intervals, beneath the friendly shelter of a huge tin tray filled with scones and baps.
If you saw Mrs. Nicolson's kitchen with the firelight gleaming on its bright copper, its polished candlesticks, and its snowy floor, you would think her an admirable housewife, but you would get no clue to those shrewd and masterful traits of character which reveal themselves chiefly behind the counter.
Miss Grieve had purchased of Mrs. Nicolson a quarter section of very appetizing ginger cake to eat with our afternoon tea, and I stopped in to buy more. She showed me a large, round loaf for two shillings.
"No," I objected, "I cannot use a whole loaf, thank you. We eat very little at a time and like it perfectly fresh. I wish a small piece such as my maid bought the other day."
Then ensued a discourse which I cannot render in the vernacular, more's the pity, though I understood it all too well for my comfort. The substance of it was this: that she couldna and wouldna tak' it in hand to give me a quarter section of cake when the other three quarters might gae dry in the bakery; that the reason she sold the small piece on the former occasion was that her daughter, her son-in-law, and their three children came from Ballahoolish to visit her, and she gave them a high tea with no expense spared; that at this function they devoured three fourths of a ginger cake, and just as she was mournfully regarding the remainder my servant came in and took it off her hands; that she had kept a bakery for thirty years and her mother before her, and never had a two-shilling ginger cake been sold in pieces before, nor was it likely ever to occur again; that if I, under Providence so to speak, had been the fortunate gainer by the transaction, why not eat my six-pennyworth in solemn gratitude once for all, and not expect a like miracle to happen the next week? And finally, that two-shilling ginger cakes were, in the very nature of things, designed for large families; and it was the part of wisdom for small families to fix their affections on something else, for she couldna and wouldna tak' it in hand to cut a rare and expensive article for a small customer.