Спереводом daily bread miss martha was 40 years old but she was not married. she had her own shop where she sold bread, both fresh and stale which was cheaper. there was a customer who called at her shop two or three times a week. the man was not young but he was very pleasant. he wore cheap clothes but they always looked nice on him. he always bought stale bread and never fresh. miss martha decided that he was very poor. she often thought of him and was always sorry that she couldn’t invite him to have dinner with her. she wanted to talk to him, to know more about him. she liked the man and began wearing her best dress. she wanted to help the poor man but didn’t know how to do it. once when her customer called on her to buy stale bread, miss martha had an idea and a good one, as she thought, to help him. she put some butter in the stale bread. the next day two men came into the shop. one of them was her customer and the other – a young man. the customer was very angry and couldn’t speak to her. so the young man told miss martha everything. “we work together in the same office”, he said. “we use stale bread to take away to pencil lines from our plans. we have worked at a plan of a new district for six months. we finished it this morning and began taking away pencil lines from it with your bread. you see, as there was butter in the bread the plan is good for nothing, and we can’t show this plan to anybody now.” when the men left, miss martha went to her room, took off her best dress and put on her old one.
