sign or legend on the front of the building to
indicate the character of the business carried on there; but instead,
above the portal, standing out from the front of the building, a
majestic life-size group of statuary, the central figure of which was
a female ideal of Plenty, with her cornucopia. Judging from the
composition of the throng passing in and out, about the same
proportion of the sexes among shoppers obtained as in the nineteenth
century. As we entered, Edith said that there was one of these great
distributing establishments in each ward of the city, so that no
residence was more than five or ten minutes' walk from one of them. It
was the first interior of a twentieth-century public building that I
had ever beheld, and the spectacle naturally impressed me deeply. I
was in a vast hall full of light, received not alone from the windows
on all sides, but from the dome, the point of which was a hundred feet
above. Beneath it, in the centre of the hall, a magnificent fountain
played, cooling the atmosphere to a delicious freshness with its
spray. The walls and ceiling were frescoed in mellow tints, calculated
to soften without absorbing the light which flooded the interior.
Around the fountain was a space occupied with chairs and sofas, on
which many persons were seated conversing. Legends on the walls all
about the hall indicated to what classes of commodities the counters
below were devoted. Edith directed her steps towards one of these,
where samples of muslin of a bewildering variety were displayed, and
proceeded to inspect them.

"Where is the clerk?" I asked, for there was no one behind the
counter, and no one seemed coming to attend to the customer.

"I have no need of the clerk yet," said Edith; "I have not made my
selection."

"It was the principal business of clerks to help people to make their
selections in my day," I replied.

"What! To tell people what they wanted?"

"Yes; and oftener to induce them to buy what they didn't want."

"But did not ladies find that very impertinent?" Edith asked,
wonderingly. "What concern could it possibly be to the clerks whether
people bought or not?"

"It was their sole concern," I answered. "They were hired for the
purpose of getting rid of the goods, and were expected to do their
utmost, short of the use of force, to compass that end."

"Ah, yes! How stupid I am to forget!" said Edith. "The storekeeper and
his clerks depended for their livelihood on selli