Salesmanship
" When you are ordering luncheon or dinner on this train," said the menu, " may we draw your attention to the interesting wines now provided at prices as reasonable as any you will find in this country ? " Interesting the wines might be, but all the menu told me—credibly enough—about them was that the Medoc and the Macon were red, while the Graves was white; so I asked the attendant for further information. " The wines, sir ?" he said, his face assuming that look of deep, inner serenity overlaid with a shallow veneer of regret so often noticeable in officials who are about to deliver a non possumus. "I'm afraid we don't know anything at all about those wines. They're all bottled by the Hotels Executive. They're nothing to do with us." Later, drinking the Burgundy (which really was quite good), I reflected that things were probably better thus, that if, by a supreme effort of co-ordination, British Railways briefed their dining-car attendants with half-digested patter about the interesting wines on the menu one would have been put off by the fact that they obviously had no idea what they were talking about and settled for a glass of beer instead. But perhaps it would have been still better not to draw our atten-
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