an his neighbours: who, and what
kind of fools can so be drawn in, it is easy to describe, but satire is
none of our business here.

On the contrary, the customers, who are the substantial dependence of a
tradesman's shop, are such as are gained and preserved by good usage,
good pennyworths, good wares, and good choice; and a shop that has the
reputation of these four, like good wine that needs no bush, needs no
painting and gilding, no carved works and ornaments;[31] it requires
only a diligent master and a faithful servant, and it will never want a
trade.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] [In another place, the author recommends a light stock, as showing
a nimble trade. There can be little doubt that he is more reasonable
here. A considerable abundance of goods is certainly an attraction to a
shop. No doubt, a tradesman with little capital would only be incurring
certain ruin having a larger stock than he could readily pay for. He
must needs keep a small stock, if he would have a chance at all of doing
well in the world. But this does not make it the less an advantage to a
tradesman of good capital to keep an abundant and various stock of
goods.]

[30] [It is really curious to find in this chapter the same contrast
drawn between the _old_ and the _new_ style of fitting up shops, and
carrying on business, as would be drawn at the present day by nine out
of every ten common observers. The notion that the shops of the past age
were plain, while those of the present are gaudy, and that the tradesmen
of a past age carried on all their business in a quiet way and with
little expense, is as strongly impressed on the minds of the present
generation, as it is here seen to have been on those of Defoe's
contemporaries, a hundred and twenty years ago, although it is quite
impossible that the notion can be just in both cases. The truth probably
is, that in Defoe's time, and at all former times, there were
conspicuous, but not very numerous, examples of finely decorated shops,
which seemed, and really were, very much of a novelty, as well as a
rather striking exception from the style in which such places in general
were then, and had for many years been furnished. So far, however, from
these proving, as Defoe anticipates, a warning to future generations,
the general appearance of shops has experienced a vast improvement since
those days; and the third-rate class are now probably as fine as the
first-rate were at no distant period. At the same