Nobody Wants This Dress

One day Mrs Jones went shopping. When her husband came home in the evening, she began to tell him about a beautiful cotton dress. ‘I saw it in a shop this morning,’ she said, ‘and ….’

‘And you want to buy it,’ said her husband. ‘How much does it cost?’

‘Fifteen pounds.’

‘Fifteen pounds for a cotton dress? That is too much!’

But every evening, when Mr Jones came back from work, his wife continued to speak only about the dress, and at last, after a week, he said, ‘Oh buy the dress! Here is the money!’ she was very happy.

But the next evening, when Mr Jones came home and asked, ‘Have you got th famous dress?’ she said, ‘No.’

‘Why not?’ he said.

‘Well, it was still in the window of the shop after a week so I thought, “Nobody else wants this dress, so I don’t want it either”.’

(L.A. Hill, Elementary Stories for Reproduction, Oxford University Press)