me
principles herself? If she be lucky enough to possess credit, the
shawl is sent home without payment, and three years afterwards fifty
per cent. is perhaps offered for settlement of the bill. It is a fair
fight, and the ladies are very well able to take care of themselves.

And Jones also thought they must have something to sell. "Money is
money," said he, "and goods is goods. What's the use of windows if we
haven't anything to dress them? And what's the use of capital unless
we buy a stock?"

With Mr. Jones, George Robinson never cared to argue. The absolute
impossibility of pouring the slightest ray of commercial light into
the dim chaos of that murky mind had long since come home to him. He
merely shook his head, and went on with the composition on which he
was engaged. It need hardly be explained here that he had no idea
of encountering the public throng on their opening day, without an
adequate assortment of goods. Of course there must be shawls and
cloaks; of course there must be muffs and boas; of course there must
be hose and handkerchiefs. That dressing of the windows was to be the
special care of Mr. Jones, and Robinson would take care that there
should be the wherewithal. The dressing of the windows, and the
parading of the shop, was to be the work of Jones. His ambition had
never soared above that, and while serving in the house on Snow
Hill, his utmost envy had been excited by the youthful aspirant who
there walked the boards, and with an oily courtesy handed chairs to
the ladies. For one short week he had been allowed to enter this
Paradise. "And though I looked so sweet on them," said he, "I always
had my eye on them. It's a grand thing to be down on a well-dressed
woman as she's hiding a roll of ribbon under her cloak." That was his
idea of grandeur!

A stock of goods was of course necessary, but if the firm could
only get their name sufficiently established, that matter would be
arranged simply by written orders to two or three wholesale houses.
Competition, that beautiful science of the present day, by which
every plodding cart-horse is converted into a racer, makes this easy
enough. When it should once become known that a firm was opening
itself on a great scale in a good thoroughfare, and advertising on
real, intelligible principles, there would be no lack of goods.

"You can have any amount of hose you want, out of Cannon Street,"
said Mr. Robinson, "in forty-five minutes. They can be brough