“These on the counter are size 6. Size 8 is up there on the shelf,” said the girl. She took a ladder and climbed up to get the article requested, while he tried to take a size 6 nightdress from the counter and roll it up. But the salesgirl was already climbing back down with a nightdress in her hand. She pushed against him in the small store when folding the ladder and in so doing she gave off a scent of some heavy imported perfume. This stopped him in his attempted theft. Instead, he said to her shyly, “You know, I’m not very good at this. Could you try on the nightdress instead of my wife? You’re approximately the same build . . . It would really help me a lot . . .”

She gave him an old-fashioned look weighing at least one kilo three hundred grams. But to his surprise she agreed. She went into a cubicle to try on the nightdress, and during this time Mr. David Senenmut, the architect, again fell prey to temptation. In a second attempt, he rolled up one of the size 6 nightdresses and stuffed it in his pocket, leaving on the counter a perfectly closed empty box so that no one would notice anything.