Only Buckets

The shop on Cross Street sells buckets. Only buckets. Prudence went in to ask about a bucket and stayed eleven minutes.

“Do you sell anything else?” she asked.

“No,” Ivor said.

“Nothing at all?”

“Buckets.”

She looked at the shelves. Buckets on the left, buckets on the right, several buckets hanging from the ceiling.

“Is it a family business? Your father, your grandfather?”

“My father was a dentist.”

“Then it's the best bucket in England.”

“It's an ordinary bucket. Four pounds, or two for seven if you want a deal.”

Prudence gave up and asked him straight. “So why only buckets?”

Ivor thought about it, the way a man does when he's answered a question a thousand times.

“In 1994 I ordered forty chairs,” he said. “They sent buckets. I phoned them, and they sent more buckets. I phoned them again, and they sent a bigger van.”

“And then?”

“Then I stopped phoning,” Ivor said, “and it's been a good little business.”