- Mrs. Slocombe's cat is pregnant but Mr. Rumbold flat-out refuses to allow the kittens to be birthed in the store. Fearing that her beloved pet will be alone when the time comes, Mrs. Slocombe smuggles it into the store.
- Mr. Grace wants to try a new idea for boosting sales. Some of the staff are to pretend they are customers and when a real customer shows interest in any goods, they are to praise it, in order for the real customer to buy it. However, due to the staff's inexperience as "customers" in their own working place, things do not go exactly as planned. Secondly, Mrs. Slocombe is rather worried about her pussy, which is about to have kittens any day now. After a slight misunderstanding, where the gentlemen believe it is Mrs. Slocombe herself who is "expecting", Captain Peacock forbids her to bring her cat into the store. However, she decides to smuggle her in.—Anders E Lundin
- On a wintry day with pelting snow and -10 degree weather, Mr. Rumbold has called a meeting at 8:30 before the store opens to discuss a new sales strategy. However, as he waits for the rest of Grace Brothers' sales staff, the minutes tick by and no one shows up but Mr. Harman and the cleaning ladies. Mr. Harman suggests the sales staff are all late because of the blizzard outside, but Mr. Rumbold says this is no excuse as the cleaning staff and himself are all already there on time, having left earlier due to the weather. He determines to give them all a good tongue-lashing when they finally arrive, for being late.
At 8:45 every member of the sales staff, with the exception of Mrs. Slocombe, exits the elevators en masse and in a clear foul mood. Mr. Rumbold starts in on his reprimand, only to discover that their tardiness is his own fault - they were there at 8:25 but could not get in because he forgot to tell security they were coming in, and they had to wait outside in the blizzard until the doors were unlocked. Mr. Rumbold apologizes and orders coffee to be brought while the staff struggle out of their frozen, wet winter gear. Mrs. Slocombe finally arrives, the only one who genuinely was late. She reveals this was because her central heating had broken down and she was holding her cat by the oven to keep it from getting hypothermia until the heating came on again. She refuses the proffered coffee, saying she's been feeling queasy lately.
Mr. Rumbold explains the new sales strategy that Mr. Grace has ordered them to implement - whenever they have a fair amount of customers standing about doing nothing or just looking and not buying, one of the staff is to don a disguise and pretend to be a customer and say complimentary things about the goods to stimulate interest. The staff are less than enthusiastic, but, as it is an order, they have to comply. They brainstorm for some things to say when they are pretending to be customers, but it soon devolves into a session of underhanded insults made at each other, and at Mr. Rumbold.
Over lunch break, Mrs. Slocombe tells Miss Brahms that she has discovered her cat is pregnant. She is excited but has been a little stressed out over this - hence being off her food - and is worried about what might happen if her cat has the kittens while she's at work and some complications arise. Midway through this conversation, Captain Peacock, Mr. Grainger, Mr. Lucas, and Mr. Humphries come to join them at the table and overhear Miss Brahms ask, "When is the happy event?" They immediately jump to the conclusion that Mrs. Slocombe herself is expecting. When she goes on to talk about the pregnancy not showing because it's the first time, and the conception happening when she'd had a few too many at the pub and left the back door open (meaning the neighbor's tomcat got in her house, but she doesn't clarify this), their suspicions seem to be justified. However, when Mr. Humphries hesitantly asks her if congratulations are in order, and if she's hoping for a boy or a girl, she talks about wanting half-and-half of each and only being able to find good homes for six, and this leads them to finally decipher that she is talking of kittens and not babies, much to their relief.
Mrs. Slocombe requests that Mr. Rumbold allow her to bring her cat to the store for the next couple days and keep her in the spare fitting room, so she can be on hand if the cat were to give birth during work hours. Mr. Rumbold refuses point-blank, will not hear her arguments, and even starts cracking jokes on the subject, prompting her to march out in a furious temper. Captain Peacock, meanwhile, tells Mr. Grainger, Miss Brahms, and Mr. Humphries to take turns going into the stockroom and finding costumes so that they can pretend to be customers, as ordered.
Miss Brahms and Mr. Grainger go back first - Miss Brahms returns in a fur coat, very low-cut and short-skirted dress, garter stockings and high heels, prompting Mr. Lucas and Mr. Humphries to strike up a vocal rendition of "The Stripper" as she sashays around. When customers arrive, she tries to pretend to be interested in a certain type of bra two women were considering purchasing variations of, but this ends up making them leave the store, disgusted that it apparently attracts loose women like her.
Mr. Grainger next emerges with a cane, heavy coat, and muffler, and shows interest in a type of gloves that a customer was admiring, commenting on their cheap price and actually trying to "buy" them. Unfortunately, there is only one pair of that particular make and color left, and Mr. Lucas soon finds himself in the middle of a battle as Mr. Grainger forgets he isn't actually supposed to buy anything and lets his competitive nature take over and he and the customer argue about who gets the gloves. Mr. Lucas tries to hint to Mr. Grainger he's going too far, finally losing his temper and telling him "Shut up, you silly old fool!", which prompts the customer to leave due to apparent bad customer service.
After these two fiascoes, Mr. Humphries goes back to the stockroom and returns dressed as a motorcyclist, and is given strict instructions by Captain Peacock to stick to the theme of "Oh dear, I wish I could afford that," and not ad-lib much. Mr. Humphries takes this literally, so when the next customer arrives, and shows interest in a velour hat, cashmere sweater, and silk scarf in turn, Mr. Humphries says "I wish I could afford that" each time, and the customer ends up ordering all three. All goes well until the customer orders a second one of each item and reveals himself as a homosexual interested in Mr. Humphries, which scares Mr. Humphries away and messes the whole thing up.
The next morning, Mrs. Slocombe is late again. Miss Brahms speculates the cat may have gone into labor and Mrs. Slocombe stayed behind with her, but Captain Peacock says he and Mr. Rumbold told Mrs. Slocombe she would be fired if she missed work because of something as trivial as a cat. Shortly thereafter Mrs. Slocombe arrives cuddling a large black and white cat. Captain Peacock reprimands her for bringing her pet to work, but it turns out that the "cat" is actually a handbag and it was a practical joke on her part. Miss Brahms congratulates Mrs. Slocombe on the success of the prank, but Mrs. Slocombe whispers to her that it was a diversion, as she has Mr. Harman as a confederate and he is currently helping her sneak the real cat into the spare fitting room. Furthermore, the cat/handbag is her cat's favorite toy and she has it to give to her to help her sleep when she gets there. Mr. Harman brings the cat up in an empty coffee tureen - the plot is nearly discovered when Captain Peacock comes to get a cup of coffee from it as he passes by, and the cat's tail comes through the spigot for a moment. Mr. Harman makes him look away right at the crucial instant and rolls the cart with the tureen away, narrowly saving the situation.
Mr. Grace comes to visit the department just before the store opens. He isn't too upset that his plan of having staff imitate customers failed, and has taken it philosophically. He offers instead to give them some tips on salesmanship by taking Mr. Grainger's place as the Senior in the Men's Department for the day. They accept, and he totters his way behind the counter to join them. The first customer to come in says he is in search of a new pair of trousers. Mr. Grace offers to take the man's waist and inside leg measurements, but it transpires he's in search of trousers for his au pair girl, and when Mr. Grace sees her pretty legs he gets so worked up he nearly has a heart attack and Captain Peacock has to call a nurse.
Meanwhile, Mr. Harman tells Mrs. Slocombe that when he got the cat out of the tureen he noticed she was already giving birth. He keeps coming back to update her on how many kittens have been born, and as the number goes up Mrs. Slocombe fears for how her cat's holding up with the labor pains and goes to ask the nurse for some anesthetic. Mr. Grace, assuming she means for him, says he doesn't need any anesthetic - Mrs. Slocombe starts to explain she wasn't talking about him, when her cat wails from the fitting room. Captain Peacock hears it and demands to know if Mrs. Slocombe's cat is indeed in the store. She lies and says all she has back there is her pajama case, but he marches back to make sure and returns with the litter of kittens in a hatbox. But he and the rest are so bowled over by how cute they are that Mrs. Slocombe is forgiven for disobeying orders as everyone picks out a kitten to cuddle.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content