UNCONVENTIONAL CALLERS (3) The Man who takes a Potato out of his Pocket. 

He is known to our family by the cumbrous name of "the Men who takes a potato out of his pocket". One of the children gave him the name and somehow we cannot imagine him as possessing any other. We do not know where he lives, nor where he grows his potatoes, and his annual appearances on our doorstep have become invested with something of the supernatural.

Some time in autumn, about the time of potato~gathering, he knocks at the back-door and, instead of giving the usual greeting, stands motionless and silent. When the silence has become almost embarrassing, he plunges his hand into his pocket and, with an impressive gesture, takes out a potato the size of a melon. He holds it aloft and gazes at it admiringly. Still in silence, he polishes it on his sleeve and places it in my hand. 

Then, at last, he is moved to speech. Stepping back a pace, he looks at me with utter confidence and enquires: "What do you think of that?"

 I try to look like a potato-expert and turn it critically, but he knows too well it is only pretence and puts the words of commendation into my mouth. 

"White as snow and bake like flour. You'll want a sack of ‘em." He fumbles in an inner pocket and the children watch round-eyed, believing that he is able to conjure anything from his pockets, but it is only a note-book this time, He is to much of an artist to repeat the trick. One potato, and one potato only, he carries and he leaves it, with its mammoth size, its perfect shape and cleanliness, to speak for itself. 

What if the sack, when received, contains only common potatoes, earthy and knobbly? There are few housewives strong enough to resist the dramatic reappearance of “the Man who takes a Potato out of his Pocket" and the hypnotism of his silent performance.