urs
chatting with him in the little _Delicatessen_ shop he had established
in Bridge Street, close to the Market Place.

Starting with only the good-will of a bankrupt confectioner, he had very
soon built up a wonderfully prosperous business. But his early success
had been in a measure undoubtedly owing to Mrs. Otway and her German
cook. Mrs. Otway had told all her friends of this amusing little German
shop, and of the good things which were to be bought there.
_Delicatessen_ had become quite the fashion, not only among the good
people of Witanbury itself, but among the county gentry who made the
cathedral town their shopping headquarters, and who enjoyed motoring in
there to spend an idly busy morning.

Then had come the erection of the big Stores. Over that matter quite a
storm had arisen, and local feeling had been very mixed. A petition
originated by those who called themselves the Art Society of Witanbury,
pointed out that a large modern building of the kind proposed would ruin
the old-world, picturesque appearance of the Market Place. But the big
local builder, the man who later promoted the election of Manfred Hegner
on to the City Council, bore down all opposition, and a group of
charming old gabled houses--houses that were little more than cottages,
and therefore perhaps hardly in keeping with the Market Place of so
prosperous a town as was Witanbury--had been pulled down, and the large
Stores had risen on their site.

And then one day--which happened to be a day when Mrs. Otway and her
daughter were away on a visit--Manfred Hegner himself walked along into
the Close, and so to the Trellis House, in order to make Anna a
proposal. It was a simple thing that he asked Anna to do--namely that
she should persuade her mistress to remove her custom from the
long-established tradesmen where she had always dealt, and transfer it
entirely to his Stores. His things, so he said, were better as well as
cheaper than those sold by the smaller people, also he would be pleased
to pay Anna a handsome commission on every bill paid by her mistress.

Anna had willingly fallen in with this plan. It had taken some time and
some trouble, but in the end Mrs. Otway found it very convenient to get
everything at the same place. For a while all had gone well for Manfred
Hegner--well for him and well for Anna. At the end of a year, however,
he had arbitrarily halved Anna's commission, and that she felt to be (as
indeed it was) most unfa