Faced with the task of reporting dreary overall sales figures, shopping mall retailers’ management teams often point enthusiastically to Internet sales, which are invariably rising nicely (off of a tiny base, of course). J.C. Penney has managed to make a foul parody of this diversionary tactic. The fact that its Internet sales fell by almost 40 per cent in the third quarter reported last week is almost (but not quite) appalling enough to distract from the fact that total comparable store sales fell by more than a quarter.