I dragged him kicking and screaming

to the computer. I typed in a few search words. I found the site. We looked at the catalogue. I checked to see it was fairly up-to-date (2008 in this case) since this is a one man business. There was the e-mail.
"Now, what do you want to say?"
"But, if I talk to him I'll get an answer straight away!"
"No you won't. He will have to do some checking. He will have to weigh the parcel to tell you how much the postage is going to be."
"Oh, well...." dictates to me. I type it up. He watches it go into cyber space and (presumably) land in the in-box of the man who supplies environmentally friendly packs of exotic timber for box making (i.e. fallen timber only)
There is a reply two hours later. One sort of timber is not in stock. He needs to 'go bush' to find some. Will another sort do? We look at the website again? Yes. I send the message off.
He goes off shaking his head. "I don't know how you do that? Where is all that information? How did you know where to find it?"
He's only 86. There's time yet....and he does make beautiful boxes!