may be
slightly disguised with a sham drawer; and sometimes a mad attempt is
even made to pass it off for a book-case; ornament it as you will,
however, the turn-up bedstead seems to defy disguise, and to insist on
having it distinctly understood that he is a turn-up bedstead, and
nothing else--that he is indispensably necessary, and that being so
useful, he disdains to be ornamental.

How different is the demeanour of a sofa bedstead! Ashamed of its real
use, it strives to appear an article of luxury and gentility--an attempt
in which it miserably fails. It has neither the respectability of a
sofa, nor the virtues of a bed; every man who keeps a sofa bedstead in
his house, becomes a party to a wilful and designing fraud--we question
whether you could insult him more, than by insinuating that you entertain
the least suspicion of its real use.

To return from this digression, we beg to say, that neither of these
classes of brokers' shops, forms the subject of this sketch. The shops
to which we advert, are immeasurably inferior to those on whose outward
appearance we have slightly touched. Our readers must often have
observed in some by-street, in a poor neighbourhood, a small dirty shop,
exposing for sale the most extraordinary and confused jumble of old,
worn-out, wretched articles, that can well be imagined. Our wonder at
their ever having been bought, is only to be equalled by our astonishment
at the idea of their ever being sold again. On a board, at the side of
the door, are placed about twenty books--all odd volumes; and as many
wine-glasses--all different patterns; several locks, an old earthenware
pan, full of rusty keys; two or three gaudy chimney-ornaments--cracked,
of course; the remains of a lustre, without any drops; a round frame like
a capital O, which has once held a mirror; a flute, complete with the
exception of the middle joint; a pair of curling-irons; and a tinder-box.
In front of the shop-window, are ranged some half-dozen high-backed
chairs, with spinal complaints and wasted legs; a corner cupboard; two or
three very dark mahogany tables with flaps like mathematical problems;
some pickle-jars, some surgeons' ditto, with gilt labels and without
stoppers; an unframed portrait of some lady who flourished about the
beginning of the thirteenth century, by an artist who never flourished at
all; an incalculable host of miscellanies of every description, including
bottles and cabinets, rags and bon