"Have you seen this lately?" "One good squeeze and it'll come apart in your hands!" "It's not as easy as that." "I've t--t--tried." "Granville!" "Fetch a d--d--dry cloth!" "" " Did M--Mrs Gillespie come for her bread?" "" " Aye, yesterday, about tea--time." "There's no p--pattern to the movements of that woman." "She's very irregular for someone that buys s--so much Ex--Lax!" "Does it matter when she comes?" "Does it matter?" "D--Does it matter?" "Course it matters!" "It's only one loaf!" "Sometimes it happens to be the l--l--last loaf on the shelf." "Customer comes in and says, "I'll take that last loaf off you."" "And I have to turn down a sale." "Do you realise wh--what it does to a shopkeeper to turn down a sale?" "I know what it does to you." "You get nasty." "That is a secondary symptom." "The first thing that happens is m--me top lip goes numb." "It goes absolutely lifeless." "It lies there as dead as if it had been n--nationalised." "" " Me moustache loses all its lustre." "" " It's looked like that for years!" "Never!" "It's been very lively in its time, has this moustache." "No, it's me lips where rigor mortis s--suddenly sets in." "Well, they're due for a rest, anyway!" "It's not funny, Granville!" "It's a hell of a place for something to die on you, right under your nose!" "A very peculiar sensation." "L--l--I have..." "I have d--difficulty f--f--formulating my words." "Really?" "I'm sure it's not noticeable!" "Me finger ends get all constricted." "Tried taking them out of the pockets?" "I don't g--go around with my hands in me p--pockets!" "Not your pockets -- other people's pockets!" "Listen, if you want to succeed in business, you have to have a streak of ruthlessness." "Either that or a rich wife!" "You couldn't get a rich wife if you didn't have a r--ruthless streak." "The size of your streak, you'll be lucky to get any wife at all!" "You haven't got one yet, have you?" "No, but I've got one on order, haven't I?" "It's just a question of arranging delivery." "No, she'll never name the day while she's got her old m--mother living with her." "It's a pity her mother can't f--find somewhere to live p--permanently, you know." "Like heaven, for instance!" "" " There we are, sir." "Thank you." "" " Thank you." "A certain steel in the make--up is part of the basic equipment of the shopkeeper." "You wouldn't like to be without part of your b--basic equipment." "No, it could be very embarrassing at my age." "It certainly could." "You could lose most of your basic equipment standing here!" "I'll have to s--slacken that spring off." "You keep saying that, but you never do." "Well, these little p--pound notes, Granville, they've been swapped around and passed from hand to hand all their lives." "They've never known a stable home." "It's up to us to keep them snug and cosy now that they're here." "No, this may not be a palace, Granville, but there's nowhere they'd be more appreciated." "You may think I'm an old m--miser, Granville, and you're at liberty to say so." "Though it might get you a swift boot b--behind the bacon counter." "There we are." "Is that for me?" "Oh!" "Ta!" "You have to remember, Granville, that it is my heavy responsibility to train you to one day take over this entire empire." "When I see you standing there with them big soft eyes and ice cream all down your front and round your mouth," "I just have to..." "I just have to..." "Oh, God!" "" " What have I done?" "" " What have you done?" "It's time for a bit of advanced training." "I've got to get a bit of steel into you." "It's no good g--going through life laying back and letting things happen to you... like your mother used to!" "Oh, 'eck!" "I've been sweeping round these things for two years!" "Why don't you give up on these, eh?" "You're never gonna get rid of these." "Who's gonna buy these?" "Don't worry about them." "They're too advanced for you." "Stick to basics like how the h--hell you're gonna pay for that ice cream." "You know, you can't just drag people into the shop." "This is not dragging 'em in." "It's propelling 'em in this direction as if by accident." "" " All right, show me." "" " You've seen me do it often enough." "I've always been too embarrassed to watch." "It's not a case of embarrassment." "It's a test of skill." "Well, I hope this section never gets published in me biography." "I'm warning you, if ever I become famous, well, one day, I want absolutely no reference to this." "I see." "Ashamed of it, are you?" "Let's just say I'd prefer to gloss over this period of my life with a simple paragraph that reads," ""For a while he was employed in a minor executive capacity" ""in a commercial...enterprise..."" "What happens if they're bigger than me, like him?" "You're not going to wrestle with him!" "All you're gonna do is use a bit of psychology." "" " Show me." "" " Granville, it's simple enough." "I'll show you this last once and then it's y--your turn." "I'd like to try on something a bit smaller." "Don't be silly." "The bigger they are, the harder they spend." "Pay attention." "Make sure he is going to pass the shop." "If he's coming in anyway, you're wasting your time." "No, it's too late once they've passed the shop." "He'll be away." "It's never too late." "You catch him at the warehouse door as they pass the back." "You go out there, and if he goes round the corner, stamp your foot." "" " Stamp me foot?" "" " You know what stamping your foot is." "Like that!" "Missed him." "Obviously missed him." "The one thing I hate is grit in the eye." "The tiniest speck feels like a d--dormer bungalow!" "You want to wet the corner of your handkerchief." "I can't see anything." "It must be catching." "Don't tell me you're going blind and all!" "Sometimes if you bring your top down and waggle the bottom." "Who do you think I am, Gypsy Rose Lee?" "Oh!" "Hey, it works." "It's gone, Granville!" "Oh, it's gone." "What a relief!" "Oh, that's wonderful." "Now, what can we give this young man to show our appreciation?" "" " Give?" "" " You don't have to give me anything." "" " You'd do the same for me." "" " Too proud to accept charity, Granville." "Well, put it this way." "What bargains can we put him onto to show our appreciation?" "Th--There we are, sir." "" " Compliments of the management." "" " You've been very good." "There's someone up there that sees everything we do." "I know, I know." "It's that Mrs Harris " " I saw her peering out of her bedroom window." "'Ey up." "Here comes Mrs Ellis and that Mrs Turner." "Here's your chance." "Try and sell them something extra." "Let's see a bit of salesmanship." "She's as bad." "She'd pass you on the street." "They're no good once they've been to Majorca." "Brown." "All she thinks about is being brown." "And nearly everywhere, if you believe what he says next door." "Well, who's got a better view?" "20 Navy Cut, please." "Same for me, Granville." "And a box of matches?" "(HE MOUTHS)" "Too much sun dries the skin." "It's very destructive." "" " I go blotchy." "" " She'll wish she'd kept more clothes on." "And here, where me bra finishes, it always starts to peel." "It's further down where it gets me." "I can stand hardly any exposure round me navel." "Me skin goes all crisp." "Top of me thighs is where I get it." "It's the ultra--violet, according to that friend of our Edmund." "He should know." "He's as big a violet as I've ever seen!" "" " How is your Edmund?" "" " Don't ask!" "That's 20 Navel..." "Er, Navy!" "Navy Cut for you, Mrs Turner, and for you, Mrs Ellis." "" " Thank you." "" " You get worse, Granville." "" " Keep taking the pills, Granville!" "" " And who is she browning herself for, is a question that springs to the lips." "It can't be her husband." "Have you seen him?" "It's the way he walks." "Nobody's going brown all over just for him." "Can you imagine him with nothing on?" "I bet we'd have to if we saw him with nothing on!" "He's fixed her up with some wonderful kitchen units." "Has he?" "" " What are you glaring at me for?" "" " What am I g--glaring at you for?" "Look at all them opportunities you missed!" "They only came in for cigarettes." "That's all they ever come in for." "What they come in for is up to them." "What they go out with is up to us!" "Can't get a word in edgewise with them two." "They never listen." "" " You make up for that, then!" "" " Hmm?" "" " Don't know what you mean." "" " Listening to the gossip!" "I can't help overhearing a certain amount." "Over--over--overhearing?" "!" "Your lugs were f--flapping about like radar!" "There was me with me arms windmilling about trying to persuade you to m--make a sale." "Oh, is that what you were doing?" "Making a sail for your windmill." "A sail for your w..." "Aghh!" "Ow!" "" " Now, you're g--g--going to get on with it." "" " What are you doing with that lad's ear?" "It's the only place to handle s--small dogs and errand boys." "With due regard to the conventions, where else would I take hold of an errand boy?" "Poor lad!" "You've made it all red." "" " It feels longer." "Is it longer?" "" " You leave him alone." "He's got very shapely, delicate, small ears." ""Delicate"?" "They're like d--dustbin lorries." "He goes round picking up every bit of rubbish he can lay his lobes on!" "They're a lot nicer ears than many I've had to see to." "Now, listen." "As the person you're supposed to be engaged to," "I don't much like this comparison of some of the things you've had to see to!" "And I can well understand why!" ""And I can well understand why."" "Granville, now listen." "Stand there." "The minute Nurse Gladys Emanuel goes into her house, you're out again on the street." "Oh, dear." "Look, she's been caught by Mrs Pendlebury." "Oh, dear!" "She's a very peculiar sh--shape, is Mrs Pendlebury." "Can't be very convenient for Mr Pendlebury." "He often comes in here quite late of an evening for his six--pack of ale with a desperate look in his eye." "She'll be there for half an hour, you mark my words." "Ah, good." "A reprieve!" "At last I've had a reprieve." "" " Not for long, Granville." "" " Oh, 'eck!" "Do I have to go out there?" "They'll only laugh at me." "I know they'll only laugh." "Come on, chin up!" "You come from proud stock, lad." "Waterloo, the B--Battle of Britain, the Glorious Double Gloucesters!" "We are a stubborn race, when the chips are down." "Well, our chips aren't down." "They're still at full retail recommended price." "A race that when we have to can still p--produce the brave." "Men who are prepared to go out s--single--handed and marry Mrs Pendlebury." ""What do you want to be when you grow up?" They'd ask at school." "I'd say, "Oh, fighter pilot."" "I see George Madeley's got a f--f--first for his Brussels sprouts again." "See what I would have missed?" "If I'd been stooging around up there with me gunsights glowing, cruising at Mach 6, there'd be no hot news like that coming over the squawk box." ""Hello, Tango to Red Leader." ""I hear George Madeley's got a f--f--first for his Brussels sprouts."" "He always was very lucky with his Brussels sprouts, was George Madeley." "(AMERICAN ACCENT) Well, Mr Madeley, I've had a look at the X--rays and I'm afraid that leg is gonna have to come off." "But never mind, we're leaving you your Brussels sprouts!" "Hey, listen to this." ""Vicar's wife accuses cook of ding--dong in belfry." ""Discarded underclothing points to vicar's infidelity."" "Let that be a l--lesson to you, Granville." "Never p--point with your underclothing." "Chance would be a fine thing!" "Poor old vicar!" "They found his vest in her pantry and her p--pants in his vestry!" "(SHOP BELL RINGS)" "" " How delightful!" "" " Always a p--pleasure to see a new face." "I never knew they still existed!" "New faces?" "Oh, yes." "You find them just underneath new people's hats." "No, not new faces." "No, these places." "Poky little shops." "Everything higgledy--piggledy, all scrunched in." "" " Quaint!" "" " Oh, good." "Do you think so?" "Definitely!" "Good, because that was just the effect we were striving after." "I said to the architect, "Now, look, Sir Hugh," I said." ""We don't want any of this modern rubbish." "We'll go strictly for quaint."" "I love the smell." "What is it, do you think?" "You've come on a bad day." "We get a lot of old people in here on a Tuesday." "Which is fine, unless it's been raining, and then some of them smell a bit damp." "I think it's cough drops, tobacco and paraffin." "That's right." "And that's only the women!" "I see you're still selling things unwrapped." "That's a vicious rumour, madam." "I've never even appeared in the shop unwrapped!" "Mind you, they do look tempting." "I might have risked a couple if you'd had tongs." "" " Don't you use tongs?" "" " Of course we do." "I am notorious on the tongs." "But usually I just save them for the summer months because they are marvellous instruments for swatting flies." "Look at that." "Another p--pregnant female." "There." "Which cake?" "One of those or one of those?" "" " No, thank you." "I don't think so." "" " A bit of cream's all over it." "Really, I only came in looking for French cigarettes." "I don't suppose you have any French cigarettes." "No, but we have English ones you can s--smoke with a foreign accent!" "" " I only smoke the French." "" " Best thing that could happen to them!" "I remember a shop like this when I was a child." "Yes, so do I. This is it!" "" " It's long since been condemned." "" " As a matter of fact, we are on the verge of the same thing ourselves." "" " Really?" "" " On account of the frats." "" " The frats?" "" " Yes." "They're everywhere." "They get under your skirting boards and floorboards, into your cavity walls." "" " You don't want them in your cavity walls." "" " A property of this age has cavity walls?" "We didn't have cavity walls till the damn frats got in!" "" " What are these frats?" "" " A nasty cross between a ferret and a rat." "A ferret and a rat?" "!" "Do they interbreed?" "Interbreed?" "That's all they ever do, night and day!" "It only takes a jiffy." "It happened first by accident when two of the creatures tried to force themselves through the same aperture." "Like that." "Of course, once having got the knack..." "" " The knack?" "" " Yes, the knack of producing frats, or, as we say locally, fraternisation." "" " And you have them here?" "" " Everywhere." "They spread like wildfrats!" "Surely if there was an epidemic, the health authorities..." "No, no, no." "They daren't risk a panic, you see." "They send someone to bore a couple of holes in your walls and tell you you've got nothing." "The trouble is, officially the problem doesn't exist." "" " What does one do?" "" " One acquires a frat detector." "Something that burns on a low light." "A little yellow flame which turns green the moment the frats appear." "That's one." "There, madam." "I'll open the door for you." "Thank you!" "Do call again for frat oil, won't you?" ""Quaint"?" "What does she mean, "quaint"?" "I'll give her qu--quaint!" "This may be old--fashioned, but it's functional." "" " This here is an annexe to my wallet." "" " How did you sell them lamps?" "Don't worry about that, Granville." "That's too advanced for you." "" " Oh, my God, what's that?" "" " Oh, me horse collapsed." "I'm not surprised!" "Oh, dear." "Hardly the thing for a quiet evening out with the one you love." "" " What?" "It's not so loud." "" " Pardon?" "" " It's not so loud." "" " I can't hear you for that shirt." "The milk woman loves it." "Don't change the subject." "We're talking about shirts." "We've got an empty shop here." "Come on, you're supposed to be outside getting customers in." "Smarten yourself up." "What's the point?" "I'll only make a fool of myself." "Then make a smartly--dressed fool of yourself." "" " Call this smartly--dressed?" "" " It's style for an apprentice shopkeeper." "I know." "It's a hell of a rig for a fighter pilot, though!" "Granville, you're going out on your first solo mission!" "The world is your oyster." "Go out, pick a victim, and come at him out of the sun." "You're on your own, B--B--Biggles." "Bring 'em back alive." "I'll hold your parachute." "What are you doing, charging into people that way?" "" " You can stop people's breath that way!" "" " Ow!" "Ow!" "Stop!" "Ow!" "Ooh!" "Ah!" "Ow!" "" " What's going on?" "" " I'm just having fun, that's all!" "You get dressed up to do a bit of shopping, not to be knocked over by an errand boy!" "Of course not, Mrs Featherstone." "Come and sit here, my dear." "Take the weight off your purse." "Not even me husband used to get as close as that!" "Whereabouts did you catch her?" "I don't know." "Everything went black." "She's a widow woman." "Everything's black to start with!" "God, it could have been anywhere!" "Hey, come on, you're supposed to be customer--finding." "Get out there." "Go on!" "Dear, dear!" "You look sad, Granville." "You poor love!" "What is it?" "It's advanced training." "Oh, if it's only to do with the shop!" "I thought you were really depressed -- heartache or something." "That's what I mean." "It is." "Mainly it is heartaches." "You mean real heartaches?" "Deep down, world looking empty?" " "Need a shoulder to lean on" heartaches?" "" " Yes, they're the ones." "Yes, that's them." "I get 'em sometimes." "I know what they're like." "" " They're terrible." "" " Terrible!" "I used to get 'em a lot." "Used to think life was really bad." "Then me husband left me." "I've felt heaps better since!" "You see, when you least expect it, something turns up." "What's wrong with Granville?" "Oh, you poor love!" "There, Mrs Featherstone, your change." "F--f--f--f--four..." "F--f--f--four..." "That's just right." "It's a very funny sensation, getting entangled at my age with an errand boy." "(COMMOTION OUTSIDE)" "Wh--What's all that going on out there?" "" " There he is!" "That's him!" "" " Bullying this poor lad!" "" " I saw him leading him by his ear." "" " Ought to be ashamed!" "Get this lot off me!" "Hey, Granville!" "Get this lot off, Granville!" "He said he wanted people in the shop!" "Funny lot, women, when you look at 'em." "And I often do." "It took me all me time to calm that lot in the shop down before I could start selling." "Then I believe there were one that got away!" "Oh, God, don't say I've started slipping." "I don't mind wearing glasses, Lord, or even a hearing aid." "But if it's all the same to you," "I'd like to stay young and very muscular when it comes to the acquisitive instinct!"