mer
plan will make the world the richer, but they do not say that it will
sell the greater number of hats. Am I to look after the world? Am I
not to look to myself? Is not the world a collection of individuals,
all of whom are doing so? Has anything been done for the world by the
Quixotic aspirations of general philanthropy, at all equal to that
which individual enterprise has achieved? Poppins and the philosopher
would spend their energies on a good hat. But why? Not that they love
the head that is to wear it. The sale would still be their object.
They would sell hats, not that the heads of men may be well covered,
but that they themselves might live and become rich. To force a sale
must be the first duty of a man in trade, and a man's first duty
should be all in all to him.

"If the hats sold from the different marts be not good enough, with
whom does the fault rest? Is it not with the customers who purchase
them? Am I to protect the man who demands from me a cheap hat? Am I
to say, 'Sir, here is a cheap hat. It is made of brown paper, and the
gum will run from it in the first shower. It will come to pieces when
worn and disgrace you among your female acquaintances by becoming
dinged and bulged?' Should I do him good? He would buy his cheap
hat elsewhere, and tell pleasant stories of the madman he had met.
The world of purchasers will have cheap articles, and the world of
commerce must supply them. The world of purchasers will have their
ears tickled, and the world of commerce must tickle them. Of what use
is all this about adulteration? If Mrs. Jones will buy her sausages
at a lower price per pound than pork fetches in the market, has she
a right to complain when some curious doctor makes her understand
that her viands have not been supplied exclusively from the pig?
She insists on milk at three halfpence a quart; but the cow will
not produce it. The cow cannot produce it at that price, unless
she be aided by the pump; and therefore the pump aids her. If there
be dishonesty in this, it is with the purchaser, not with the
vendor,--with the public, not with the tradesman."

But still as he sat upon the gate, thus arguing with himself, a
dream came over him, a mist of thought as it were, whispering to him
strangely that even yet he might be wrong. He endeavoured to throw it
off, shaking himself as it were, and striving to fix his mind firmly
upon his old principles. But it was of no avail. He knew he was
awake; but y