Cheapside

“ In August 1688 Edwin was chosen sheriff of London and Middlesex, entering upon his duties on 11 Oct. following. The year was an eventful one. In December Edwin, with his colleague and the aldermen of London, attended the Prince of Orange on his entry into London, and took part in February in the proclamation of the king and queen in Cheapside and at the Royal Exchange. On 25 Oct. Edwin was elected alderman of the ward of Cheap, in succession to William Kiffen, the baptist minister [q. v.] ”

“ He chose rather to sit idle than work at any time, as he was a hater of hard labour. No man needed to offer him cheese and bread after he curst he would not have it; for he would blush at bread and milk, when hungry, as a beggar doth at a baubee. He got the name of John Cheap the Chapman, by his selling twenty needles for a penny, and twa leather laces for a farthing. ”

“ Chequers, I am bound to say that there are a few cosy, harmless places whereof the loss would be a calamity.
I grow weary now, and often at nights, when the vast shadow of the lamp shudders on the ceiling and the wind moans hoarsely outside, I fall back in sheer luxury on the fine, straight, cut-and-thrust of old Boswell's conversations as a relief from the slavering babble which I often hear. Being a Loafer is all very good so far; but some of the men (and women) who address me use a kind of familiarity that makes me long to lie down and die. ”

“ I made myself a chapman when very young, in hopes of being rich when I became old.
My first journey was through Old Kilpatrick, I got no meat nor money until the evening I began to ask for lodging, then every wife to get me away would either give me a cogful of kail, or a piece of cake. Well says I to myself, if this be the way, I shall begin in the morning to ask for lodging, or any time when I am hungry. Thus I eontinued going from house to house, until my belly was like to burst, and my pockets eould hold no more ”

“ I suppose she lives in an ancestral colonial place full of antique mahogany, the kind we all buy at junk shops when we have money enough."
"What kind of a woman would it be that could stand Dan Leitzel's penuriousness?" Mr. Schaeffer speculated. "He makes money like rolling down hill and I've heard him jew down the old chore woman that scrubs his office and haggle over a fifty-cent bill for supper at the club. He's the worst screw I ever knew. And mind you, his bride's a Southern woman, accustomed to liberality and gallantry and everything she won't find at Danny's house!" ”

“ After the death of her father, Shabelsky, who was a landowner with no other children, she was left with several estates, a stud farm, and a lot of money. I had heard that, though she was only twenty-five or twenty-six, she was ugly, uninteresting, and as insignificant as anybody, and was only distinguished from the ordinary ladies of the district by her immense wealth.
It has always seemed to me that wealth is felt, and that the rich must have special feelings unknown to the poor. ”

“ She had a house in Chester Square and an income and a victoria—it served all purposes, as she never went out in the evening—and flowers on her window-sills, and a remarkable appearance of youth. The income was supposed to be in part the result of a bequest from the man for whose sake she had committed the error of her life, and in the appearance of youth there was a slightly impertinent implication that it was a sort of afterglow of the same connection. ”

“ For instance, now, there was an old fellow-apprentice of my father’s, who, like myself, was a baker, his name was Charlie Cheeper; and, both his father and mother dying when he was yet hardly in trowsers, he would have been left without a hame in the world, had not an old widow woman, who had long lived next door to them, and whose only breadwinner was her spinning-wheel, taken the wee wretchie in to share her morsel. ”

“ The newer and truer romance will be the romance of cheapness. It will address itself to the truly imaginative task of realising what is the real worth (a worth running into millions) of the penny cup of coffee to the tired pedestrian at midnight or the pennyworth of tobacco, to the poor man in his half-hour holiday. ”

“ Since then his cheap clothing, which is sold for a trifle, answers the same or even a better purpose to him, and those clothes, which oblige a man to pay down much gold, do only the same thing, is not this great superabundance so much loss? For it has added nothing in respect of its use and service, but your purse is emptied of so much the more gold, and the same use and service. You who have riches have purchased for a hundred pieces of gold, or even more, but the poor man for a trifling sum of silver. ”

“ Mier. If I consider the price of a thing too high, I don't buy it."
"You paid too high for your strawberries today."
"Perhaps I did; although I am by no means certain."
"You can judge for yourself. Mine cost but eight cents, and you own that they are superior to yours at ten cents."
"Still, yours may have been too cheap, instead of mine too dear."
"Too cheap! That is funny! I never saw any thing too cheap in my life. The great trouble is, that every thing is too dear. What do you mean by too cheap?" ”

“ A spacious life not cramped within four walls requires a spacious pocket too. I have bored you already, but I must tell you one thing more: the clover seed costs one hundred roubles a pood, and the oats needed for seed cost more than a hundred. Think of that! They prophesy a harvest and wealth for me, but what is that to me! Better five kopecks in the present than a rouble in the future. I must sit and work. I must earn at least five hundred roubles for all these trifles. I have earned half already. And the snow is melting, it is warm, the birds are singing, the sky is bright and spring-like. ”

“ If we had but looking-glasses within us, should we not be put to shame for all the costly meat whereby thou hast been filled? The poor man hungers, and so does the rich; the poor man seeks to be filled, so does the rich. The poor man is filled with inexpensive, the rich with costly meats. Both are filled alike, the object [27] whither both wish to attain is one and the same, only the one reaches it by a short, the other by a circuitous way. But thou wilt say, I relish better my costly food. ”

“ XXV
"There's a train every half-hour," Chester said.
"Yes, but the day-laborer must be home early."
On the train--"Well," the youth urged, "your grand'mère stayed in the old home, I hope, with the three children--and Sidney?"
"Only till she could sell it. But that was nearly three years, and they were hard, those three. But at last, by the help of that Royal Street coterie--who were good friends, Mr. Chester, when friends were scarce--she sold both house and furniture--what was by that time remaining--and bought that place where we are now living." ”

“ Me and Cheevers was newly married at the time I am asked to go back to, and in poor circumstances, but hopeful, Cheevers doing a small trade in coke an’ cheap vegetables, and me taking in what washing I could get, which was mostly that of poor folks; but poverty will sometimes ’ide a empty cravin’ under a clean shirt, and all the more 3credit I says, as my motto have been throughout my whole life— and I have seen some ups and downs in my time—Keep Yourself Respectable. ”

“ George Dane had to think. 'How do I know, after all? What practice has one ever had in estimating the inestimable? Particular cheapness certainly isn't the note that we feel struck all round; but don't we fall naturally into the view that there must be a price to anything so awfully sane?'
The good Brother in his turn reflected. ”

“ De Ciel!' cried my old friend, clapping her hands. 'And that's the very thing we've done, isn't it, John?' ('The very thing we've done,' echoed John.) 'I made him do it only this morning. He has signed her a Blank Cheque, so that she can go to any cost she likes. It's such a comfort to get things settled and off one's hands, you know! ”

“ Once, it was long ago, the shop had belonged to the Egsons, but speculation had swamped them. Then Cheevers. as he occasionally reminded them, rescued them. As the business spread, Mr. Cheevers took himself more and more seriously. He joined every available committee. He spoke in public whenever he had the chance, and sometimes when he had not. The affairs of his suburb were deep in his heart. One day, possibly, he might rise to higher things; but only to his wife, who was a good woman, did he darkly hint of his ambition. ”

“ They never patronize poor young men. Their instinct in finding out rich ones is unerring. And furthermore, Mr. Chiffield is a member of a firm twenty years old, who are marked 'A No. 1' on the books of a mercantile agency, that makes it a business to pry into other people's affairs. I paid ten dollars for the information, only a month ago. He must be rich! He must be rich!" Mr. Whedell repeated it twice, as if the repetition put the question of Chiffield's opulence beyond a doubt. ”

“ I know what men are. The General is not my first husband."
"No, I got no provocation. Mr. Conolly is not like other men. I got discontented because I had nothing to desire. And now, about the lodgings, Mrs. Crawford. Do not think I am changing the subject from reticence. It is the question of money that makes me anxious. All my resources would be swallowed up at the hotel in less than a week."
"Lodgings? You mean rooms, I guess. People here mostly go to boarding-houses. And as to the cheapness, you dont know what cheapness is. ”

“ Not means, but desires; for they saw even poor men themselves, even if not having money, yet to have covetousness. And that ye may know, that not money in a rich man, but covetousness is condemned, attend to what I say; Thou observest that rich man standing near thee, and perchance in him is money, and is not covetousness; in thee is not money, and is covetousness. A poor man full of sores, full of woe, licked by dogs, having no help, having no morsel, not having perchance a mere garment, was borne by the Angels unto Abraham’s bosom. ”

“ I remember one time we were in Lamesa, when I was eleven years old. I had spent all my money except a dime. I wanted to buy a pocketbook to put my money in. There were four stores in town that sold pocketbooks and I went to all of them but it was of no use. The cheapest one any of them had was ten cents. Now, if I spent my dime for one, I wouldn't have any money left to put in it. And if I didn't buy one, I was apt to lose my dime. What should I do? ”

“ They were encumbered by debt. Life had long been rendered miserable by it. And in truth, how can these poor straitened men, gentlemen of connections as they often are, keep debt from their door? Captain Chesney was, to use a familiar expression, over head and ears in it. He had quitted the neighbourhood of Plymouth, where they had lived for so many years, simply because the place grew too hot to hold him, his creditors too pressing to be borne with, South Wennock was becoming the same, and people were growing troublesome.
It was Jane who bore the brunt of it all. ”

“ Cheap, one of the first merchants in the place, where we were received with uncommon marks of civility, he insisting upon our taking possession of his house, and living entirely with him during our stay, which we did, and were by him furnished with every accommodation that we could wish for. Leave was procured by him for us to search the island for whatever natural productions we might find worth noticing; people were also employed to procure for us fish and shells; horses and guides were obtained for Dr. Solander and myself to carry us to any part of the island which we might choose to visit. ”

“ Lord Chetwynde, look at me, think of what I have done, and answer. Is this the way to secure my happiness? What is money to me? Money! Do I care for money? What is it that I care for? I? I only wish to die! I have but a short time to live. I feel that I am doomed. Your money, Lord Chetwynde, will soon go back to you. Spare your solicitors the trouble to which you are putting them. ”

“ Egson who conducted the lady clients to a similar desirable privacy behind another partition. There was, in fact, a general impression that the shop was Egson's, and Mr. Cheevers did nothing to disturb it. In the suburb he spoke of himself vaguely as being engaged in quite a small way in the export trade in the City. None the less, that shop was Cheevers', and the working capital belonged to Cheevers, and the profits accrued to Cheevers. Mr. and Mrs. Egson were merely paid servants, very well paid because they were singularly smart and remarkably hard-working, and perfectly honest. ”

“ Jim helped himself to coffee.
“Yes, it does seem cheap,” he said. “But, of course, it’s very remote: it took me a good three hours from Lairg, and I don’t suppose I was driving very noticeably below the legal limit. But it’s cheap, as you say.”
Now, Madge (who is my wife) has her prejudices. One of them—an extremely expensive one—is that anything cheap has always some hidden and subtle drawback, which you discover when it is too late. And the drawback to cheap houses is drains or offices{110}—the presence, so to speak, of the former, and the absence of the latter. ”

“ When we took a house we were always asked what rent we paid, and when finally we bought the house in which we hope to end our days, all our Spanish friends asked us what the price was, and held up their hands in congratulatory amazement, exclaiming, “How cheap!” It is always a compliment to say you have made a good bargain, and if you wish to annoy, you have only to remark, “How they have cheated you!”
An old servant who lived with us for a good many years hoarded all her wages and spent nothing beyond the “tips” she received from visitors. ”

“ At the end of a week Chester woke up among his lumber to a realization that he was at the end of his resources. He had just five cents left out of the four dollars that were to have been the key to his fortune. He sat gloomily on the wall of his sleeping apartment and munched the one solitary cracker he had left. It must carry him through the day unless he got work. The five cents must be kept for some dire emergency. ”