Lunchtime read: Metamorphosis and Other Stories

Because of a lunch meeting there was only time for a very short story today one that sums up the cold outlook some merchants can have when a customer does not have the means to pay.

The coal-scuttle rider
A very topical story for today bearing in mind the snow that covered London this morning. A man finds himself without any coal and facing the prospect of freezing to death. In desperation he takes his coal scuttle to the coal merchant and pleads for some coal of the lowest quality and he will pay later. But as the merchant’s wife comes out to speak to him and he mentions that he cannot pay the husband asks after her what the customer wants. ‘Nothing: is her reply and despite the curses of the desperate man she wanders back inside and leaves him to fate and the cold.