So I spoke up manfully.
"Oh, no," I said; "this is the tea my mother always sends you.

There is no worse tea." Nothing in my life ever hurt me more than that woman's answer to my argument.

She laughed--she simply laughed.

But I understood, even before she controlled herself sufficiently to make verbal remarks, that I had spoken like a fool, had lost my mother a customer.

I had only spoken the truth, but I had not expressed it diplomatically.
That was no way to make business.
I felt very sore to be returning home with the tea still in my hand, but I forgot my trouble in watching a summer storm gather up the river.