The Old Price Until Lady Day

Dear friend,

The riddle first, as the tradition demands. Back in the old town, in a year when the canal froze and coal went up by a third, two laundresses took in washing on the same street.

Two laundresses, the same copper, the same yellow soap, the same starch,
The same twenty households, the same fourpence a dozen, the same coal dearer by a third.
Both were obliged to ask fivepence, and neither could have carried on at the old figure.
One wrote the new price on the March account. One wrote a note in January, with the reason and the day it began.
By August one round had grown by three houses, and one was short by eight.
Which of them lost the eight?

Hold your answer. Story time.

The Story

Two laundresses in the town I've never named, and their work, in the old chorus, was equally good. Collection Monday, delivery Thursday, fourpence a dozen pieces, settled at the month's end. Twenty households apiece, a copper lit before five, and a mangle wanting two hands and a shoulder.

The first did her sums in the January and found them plain enough. Coal up a third, soap up twopence the bar, her margin on fourpence gone entirely. She shortened no rinse and spoiled nothing, and when the March accounts were written out she put fivepence a dozen at the head of each and sent them round with the linen.

Consider a householder reading that account at her kitchen table. She has had fourpence in her head for six years, and nothing on the paper says why the figure has moved. She pays it, being a penny. But something has been done to her that was not done the week before, and she now reads the account.

Three of the twenty wrote to ask whether there had been a mistake, which she answered three times over, each time sounding as though she were defending herself. Two others had heard of a woman two streets over at fourpence halfpenny. By August eight households were gone, and not one over a penny. They went because a figure they lived with changed while nobody was speaking to them, and such a change is read as an opinion of the customer rather than a fact about coal.

The second laundress had the same canal and the same arithmetic, and what she did with it took one evening. She wrote twenty notes by hand in the middle of January, four sentences apiece. That from the twenty-fifth of March her price would be fivepence a dozen. That coal had risen a third since the freeze, and she would sooner ask the penny than use less soap. That until Lady Day everything went at fourpence. And that if there were blankets or heavy curtains wanting doing, she had room on the February Tuesdays at the old price.

February was the fullest month she had ever worked. Counterpanes came out of cupboards where they had sat two winters, and one house sent the curtains of three rooms at once. She took a girl on for a fortnight to manage it, and met the spring with the rise arriving as a date known about for nine weeks. One household left her, being a house where a penny truly mattered. Another showed the note to a sister across the town, and by August the round had grown by three.

Be fair to the first woman. Her work was as good, her fivepence as honest, and she was not grasping. Her mistake was to suppose that a figure would explain itself.

The Lesson, Since You've Earned It

A price rise given in advance, with a reason and a date, is an offer; the same rise discovered on an invoice is an injury. The money is identical. What differs is who told whom, and when, and the customer weighs that far more heavily than the penny, because the penny is arithmetic and the telling is character.

Almost nobody leaves over the amount. The eight did not find fivepence beyond them. They found a new number on a piece of paper and, having no reason to hand, supplied one, as everybody does. And every reason a customer invents is about you. She has got busy and does not need us. She thinks we would not notice. A silence where a reason should be fills up on its own, never in your favour.

Give the reason and the invention stops. It should be a fact of the world rather than a wish of yours, and one sentence is plenty. Coal has gone up a third. The wholesaler has put on eleven per cent. A reason of that kind can be repeated, which matters, because somebody will ask your customer about your price and you would rather he held a fact than a suspicion. It is the machinery that makes a reduction believable, set out in why every discount needs a true reason, and it runs both ways.

Then give notice long enough to be a courtesy. Six weeks lets a household plan. A fortnight is a notification. The same day is a discovery. And into that gap put what separates the second laundress from every tradesman who writes a polite letter about prices. Give them something to do at the old price. Name what it is, how much you can take, and the day it stops. An increase with a window in front of it is not a loss to be absorbed but a reason to act this month, and your best customers are the people a rise unsettles most. Whoever leaves over a penny, given good notice and a reason, would have left over something else by Christmas.

Two cautions. First, do not explain at length. One sentence of reason is a fact; a paragraph is a plea, and a plea invites a negotiation. Explain your difficulties in detail and you have handed him a ledger to audit. Do not apologise either, or the price becomes a favour you are asking rather than a term of trade, as telling a customer the cost has risen sets out at length. Second, having named the date, keep it. Leave the two who grumble quietly at the old figure and you have taught a street that your prices are settled by whoever complains.

Three questions, before you write the notice:

1. What is the date, and could a customer plan for it? Put it far enough out that the answer is yes. A date chosen to get the awkwardness over was chosen for your comfort, not his.
2. What is the reason, in one sentence, that does not depend on your own affairs? Write it and read it aloud. If it needs a second sentence to stand up, you have found your feelings about the matter rather than the reason.
3. What may they buy at the old price, and how much can you take? Name the thing, the quantity and the closing day. A window with no limit is not a window, and one nobody was invited through is a fact about your calendar.

The Answer to the Riddle

Which of them lost the eight?

The first, who put the new figure on the March account and let it speak for itself. Both charged fivepence and both were right to. One left twenty households to find it out with no reason attached, so twenty households furnished a reason of their own. The other spent an evening on twenty notes, and turned the same penny into a full February and three new houses.

The verse:

The same copper, the same soap, the same penny to find,
The same coal in the cellar gone dearer by a third.
One wrote it on the account and was quietly resented,
One wrote it in January, and was thanked for the word.

Until next time. Go and write the one true sentence of reason for the price you have been meaning to raise, and put a date against it today.

P.S. The longer you leave a rise, the larger the step must be, and a large step cannot be given a small reason. A penny on fourpence explained by coal is a fact. Threepence after six years of silence requires a speech, and no speech has ever been believed on the subject of price. The man who raises a little each year with a line of explanation is thought steady. The one who waits until he cannot go on is thought to have changed, and a change in a person is forgiven far less readily than a change in the price of coal.

Also in the archive: The Weaver's Four Sentences, Notice at Michaelmas and Half a Crown Each Monday.