Shopkeeper

“ That here you see, and I could give many examples very like this, how, and in what manner, a shopkeeper is to behave himself in the way of his business—what impertinences, what taunts, flouts, and ridiculous things, he must bear in his business, and must not show the least return, or the least signal of disgust—he must have no passions, no fire in his temper—he must be all soft and smooth: nay, if his real temper be naturally fiery and hot, he must show none of it in his shop—he must be a perfect complete hypocrite, if he will be a complete tradesman. ”

“ Our shop has given us a living, but these two discoveries have made the hundred and sixty thousand francs which we possess, net and clear! Without my genius, for I certainly have talent as a perfumer, we should now be petty retail shopkeepers, pulling the devil's tail to make both ends meet. I shouldn't be a distinguished merchant, competing in the election of judges for the department of commerce; I should be neither a judge nor a deputy-mayor. Do you know what I should be? A shopkeeper like Pere Ragon,—be it said without offence, for I respect shopkeeping; the best of our kidney are in it. ”

“ Shopkeeper set in the hand of the pedlar."
"Who is the pedlar, hunchback?"
"The pedlar is he that carries the pack on his back."
"What carries he in the pack?"
"He carries what the Shopkeeper gave him—for he had no money and no choice."
"Who is the Shopkeeper, dwarf?"
"The Shopkeeper—the Shopkeeper is the father of dwarfs and angels and children—and fools."
"What does he sell, poor man?"
"He sells harness for men and cattle, and you give your lives for the harness."
"What is this you carry, dwarf?"
"I carry home the harness of a soul." ”

“ The shopkeeper attending to his customers, the tippler stepping into the corner shop for a dram, and the carman smoking his pipe, and giving his beast a mouthful of hay, are as unconscious of any personal connection with the dead generations as if they had sprung full grown and furnished with clothing from the fat glebe of the neighboring Phoenix Park. ”

“ The very shopkeeper who may have done you an ill turn in business (just as a child with a stick hits you joyously and without malice) will retire to the tiny scrap of a place behind his premises, and, as if whirled away on the wonderful carpet of the Arabian Nights, he is another man, in another world, instantly ”

“ Then one of the company cheapens something or other, making many words with the shopkeeper about the price, thereby giving an opportunity to some of his companions to hand things of value from one to another till they were insensibly vanished, the honest shopkeeper being left to deplore the misfortune of having such light-fingered customers find the way to his shop. ”

“ Thus one, attracted by a specimen in a shop window, may become an interested listener to a conversation in which the beauty of the said piece and its phenomenal cheapness are the theme. It probably never occurs to the dupe that the respectable-looking lady and gentleman are in the employ of the shopkeeper, and that their conversation was arranged entirely for his benefit. ”

“ The shopkeeper sits on the floor of his shop, surrounded by his various goods. He never rises to customers, for everything is within reach of his hand. [402] Women never meddle with trade, which is solely in the hands of the men. ”

“ The shopkeeper generally sits upon the mastab′ah, unless he be obliged to retire a little way within his shop to make room for two or more customers, who mount up on the seat, taking off their shoes before they draw up their feet upon the mat or carpet. ”

“ It cannot be supposed that all the shops in London are remunerative. Of course not. Many of them are tradesmen's follies in disguise, excuses for idleness; sometimes even expensive hobbies. As he cannot do nothing as a non-practising advocate or parson, or a retired soldier, the shopkeeper with a taste for idleness does nothing as a shop-keeper. ”

“ When the shop is filled with well-dressed ladies, as is usually the case from ten in the morning till three in the afternoon, there is a bewildering splendor about the scene, and one might almost fancy, that a species of fascination, calculated to make the customer an easy prey to the shopkeeper, is at once the object and the end of these devices. ”

“ It is curious that while a modern shopkeeper who sells you a cigar or an automobile or a quarter of lamb does not think it necessary to make you a noble of the ancien régime before commencing business, a shopkeeper who sells you cooked food could not omit this preliminary without losing his self-respect. ”

“ In this case, the shopkeeper is sometimes a merchant adventurer, whether he will or not, and some of his business runs into sea-adventures, as in the salt trade at Sheffield, in Northumberland, and Durham, and again at Limington ”

“ On the other hand, the lowest type of shopkeeper, the chandler, the dealer in old iron, the tripe shop, the milk retailer, the keeper of a cook shop or a green cellar belong to the class of unskilled and casual labor. ”

“ To end with a brief classification, it may be noted that there are dealers whose shops have private rooms in the rear where trade can be carried on in the same way as with a dealer who has no shop. From this double-faced form we pass to the real shopkeeper, the vaster class ranging from the vendor who can afford to fill his window with the choicest samples down to the modest curio shop, the benevolent harbour of the humbler modes of expressing art. ”

“ There is many a shopkeeper whose sign is a very tolerable picture; and often have we stopped to admire (the reader will give us credit for having remained outside) the excellent workmanship of the grapes and vine-leaves over the door of some very humble, dirty, inodorous shop of a marchand de vin. ”

“ The little French provincial shopkeeper, who locks his shop-door, from twelve to one o'clock, while he dines with his family, has come nearer than you to solving the problem of life, How to be happy. Sharper and Co. may suspend payment, without the fact interfering with his digestion. Twice a year he goes and takes up his three per cent. ”

“ But to descend more into detail, there are still among its at any rate a limited number of shopkeepers who like to do their business on good, safe, and steady lines, and keep together a nice respectable connection by upholding the dependable quality of their wares. Some of these shopkeepers do not make much of an outward show, but I have reason to know that many of them in a quiet undemonstrative manner do a snug and prosperous trade without fuss or display. ”

“ They go into some quiet street in a quiet hour of the day. A man enters the shop alone and makes a trifling purchase, which he pays for with such a coin as will compel the shopkeeper to open the drawer for change; this move enables him to see where the till is, and something of what it contains. The man then leaves the shop, goes to the boy and gives him his instructions. The boy waits about until there is no one in the shop; he then tosses his worthless cap behind the counter and goes stealthily in, stopping the bell from ringing if he can. ”

“ The farmers must rob or beg, or leave their country. The shopkeepers in this and every other town, must break and starve: For it is the landed man that maintains the merchant, and shopkeeper, and handicraftsman. ”

“ I am afraid some red-headed girl or some stout shopkeeper may have been left in a corner, as it is in vehicles of this description that worthy shopkeepers drive about all day with their families when they treat themselves to an outing. ”

“ Villagers beginning to read do not care for this class of work; like children, they look for something more amusing, and want something to wonder at for their money.
At the post-office there is often an assortment of cheap stationery on sale, for where one cottager wrote a letter a few years ago ten write them now. But the shopkeeper—most likely a grocer or storekeeper of some kind—knows nothing of books, and will tell you, if you ask him, that he never sells any or has any orders. How should he sell any, pray, when he does not put the right sort into his window? ”

“ When our local committee determined, in the words of the minutes book, to open a shop and offices in the local main street, "for the dissemination of suffrage literature," we made up our minds that we would not be amateur shopkeepers. The success of our venture, we argued solemnly, depended on convincing the neighbourhood that we meant to be taken as seriously as any other tradesman in the street. Unfortunately, in saying this, we reckoned without our customer; for, if you attempt to be taken seriously as a shopkeeper, the one error to be avoided is that of taking the customer seriously. ”

“ The objection that social England has against the shopkeeper is, no doubt, based upon many sad experiences that the shopkeeper brings his shop with him to dinner, and will not, or cannot, pose to the extent of forgetting his material concerns in the presence of the frivolous. ”

“ This shopkeeper finds some dreary consolation for the present state of things in standing at his deserted shop-door and watching the doors of his brethren. He finds them equally deserted. In his own he has had to dismiss a number of his attendants. “When a man finds he is taking in ten shillings a day, and laying out three pounds ten, what can he do but pull up pretty short?” As with the shopkeepers, so it is with the mechanics. “They are losing custom all the time. You see the tenants are expecting to come into the properties, so they spend nothing now on painting or improvements. ”

“ Men of that ilk methinks may be likened to the sort of small shopkeeper who hangs out in the slums or suburbs of the town and does a little now in the bakery line, now in the grocery line, now in the apothecary line and now in general retail business—in fact, a little bit of everything and nothing good in anything. ”

“ For myself, however, I am glad that there are still some shopkeeper specialists left who limit themselves to dealing in such things as they understand, and know what they buy, and sell that they know. ”

“ They speak of limited commerce united with a social or observing disposition—on the part of the shopkeeper,—allowing, as they do, talk with passers-by, yet keeping off such as have not the excuse of business to cross the threshold. ”

“ The merchant, or shopkeeper, seldom lives in the house, in the ground floor of which his shop is situated, but generally somewhere at a distance. He has no shopmen, or assistants. The recess, in which he carries on his business, if large, is about in space a cube of ten or twelve feet. ”

“ The child is sometimes sent to the shop three times a-day, to obtain the supplies for each meal as it is wanted. Of course, the shopkeeper cannot give so much time, paper, and string without being paid for them. ”

“ The consequence is, that as the few inhabitants of these localities have frequent communication with adjacent centres of business, they, as a matter of habit or of choice, supply their chief wants thereat; and the newly arrived shopkeeper has to depend principally for support upon the accidental forgetfulness of his neighbour, who omits to bring something from the cheaper and better market ”

“ The proprietor of the shop looks calmly on with apparently no interest in the business, but it is more than likely that some understanding with the itinerant vendor exists, and that when the purchaser has departed the shopkeeper will get a commission for the use of his premises. ”

“ A small shopkeeper indeed, or mechanic, though not admitted into the social circles of the higher classes, may be a worthy and respectable man in his way, and may well be content to associate with those who are in every respect his own equals ”

“ The very habits of life in a mercantile or manufacturing district are completely at variance with the lives of nobles. The shopkeeper and artisan are just going to bed when the great world is thinking of dinner ”

“ To anybody but a London shopkeeper, the attempt would appear altogether hopeless, to transform a hundred poor persons, who were never worth half-a-crown a piece from one year's end to the other, into so many 9s. customers ”

“ By degree this gift money grew to be demanded as a right; and by-and-by comes thrifty Master Tradesman, and pops the broad pieces into his till, calling them premium. Poor little shopkeepers in this “silver age” will take a ’prentice from the parish for five pounds, or from an acquaintance that is broken, for nothing perhaps, and will teach him the great arts and mysteries of sweeping out the shop, sleeping under the counter, fetching his master from the tavern or the mughouse when a customer comes in, or waiting at table ”

“ The shopkeeper supplies principally the noblemen and gentry with the necessaries and luxuries of life, but the pedlar or hawker is the purveyor in general to the poor. He brings the greengrocery, the fruit, the fish, the water-cresses, the shrimps, the pies and puddings, the sweetmeats, the pine-apples, the stationery, the linendrapery, and the jewellery, such as it is, to the very door of the working classes; indeed, the poor man’s food and clothing are mainly supplied to him in this manner. ”

“ This warehouse-keeper, or wholesale-man, sells the goods which he buys of the merchant—I say, he sells them to the retailers, and it is for that reason I place it first there. Now, as they buy in smaller quantities than he did of the merchant, so he deals with more of them in number, and he goes about among them the same Saturday, to get in money that he may pay his merchant, and he receives his bag full of promises, too, every where instead of money, and is put off from week to week, perhaps by fifty shopkeepers in a day ”