AN ANECDOTE OF BARONESS BURDETT COUTTS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 11, 12 January 1872, Page 2

AN ANECDOTE OF BARONESS BURDETT COUTTS.

0 Mrs. Laura Curtis Bullard writes to the Golden Age this story :— -Of course, she is a well-known and most welcome cus-

tomer at all the fashionable shops ia London, but she is not so familiar a habitue of the shops of Paris. During a visit to this latter city, not very long since, she learned the death of a distant relative, and she went to purchase mourning to the shop, the Trois Quartiers. She asked for morning dress goods, and was shown by one of the attentive shopmen to the proper department. " Please shew this lady mourning stuffs," he said, " twoten." Miss Coutts made her selection, and then asked for mourning collars ; the clerk who had waited on her accompanied her to the proper counter. " Please show this lady mourning collars — two-ten," said he, and left her. From this department she went to look for mourning pocket handkerchiefs, escorted by the clerk, who passed her over to his successor with

the requeat, •* Show this lady pocket handkerchiefs — two-ten." As she iad still other articles to buy, she was escorted from counter to counter, department to department, and everywhere theße cabalistic words, " two-ten," were repeated by one clerk to another. Struck by the peculiarity of this refrain, she asked the proprietor as she left the establishment, " Pray what does * two-ten ' mean ? I noticed each clerk said it to the other in your shop." " Oh, it is nothing," he replied ; " merely a pass-word that they are in the habit of exchanging." But Miss Coutts was not satisfied with this explanation. Her woman's curiosity was piqued, and she resolved to unravel the riddle. So in the evening, when the porter, a yonng boy, brought home her purchases, after paying her bill, she said, "My boy, would you like to earn five francs ?" Of course he had no objection to do so, and only wanted to know in what way he could do it. " Tell me," said the lady, " what does ' two-ten ' mean ? I will give five francs." " Why, don't you know, ma'am ? " said he, evidently amazed at her ignorance. "It means, keep your two eyes on her ten fingers." The mystery was solved at last. All the clerks of the Trois Quartiers had taken the richest woman in Great Britain for a shoplifter. She tells the story with great gusto, and one of her friends, to whom she had related it in Paris, repeated it to me.