Chapter XIII: Part 13

Two pedlars made their rounds in the same district of country. The one was a tall, thin man, with a swarthy complexion. Nothing could exceed this fellow’s anxiety to obtain customers; his whole powers seemed to be directed to the means of disposing of his wares. He no sooner arrived at a farm-house than he broached the subject nearest his heart—“Any thing wanted in my line to-day?” He entered into a most unqualified eulogium on their excellency; they were all unequalled in fineness; he could sell them for what might be said to be absolutely nothing; and as for lasting, why, to take his word for it, they would wear for ever. He chose the table where the light was most advantageous, proceeded immediately to undo the labyrinth of cord with which his goods were secured, and took the utmost pains to exhibit their whole glories to the eyes of the admiring rustics. If the farmer endeavoured to elicit from him some information concerning the state of the crops in the places where he had been travelling, he could only afford a brief and unsatisfactory answer, but was sure to tack to the tail of it the recommendation of some piece of west of England cloth which he held in his hand ready displayed. Nay, if the hospitality of the good wife made him an offer of refreshment before he entered upon business, he most magnanimously, but unpedlar-like, resisted the temptation to eat, animated by the still stronger desire to sell. There was no possibility of withdrawing him for a moment from his darling topic. To the master he said, “Won’t you buy a coat?”—to the mistress, “Won’t you buy a shawl?”—to the servant girls, “Won’t you buy a gown a-piece?” and he earnestly urged the cowherd to purchase a pair of garters, regardless of the notorious fact that the ragged urchin wore no stockings. But all his efforts were ineffectual; even his gaudiest ribands could not melt the money out of a single female heart; and his vinegar aspect grew yet more meagre as he restored each article untouched to his package.

The rival of this unsuccessful solicitor of custom was a short, squat man, fair-haired and ruddy. He came in with a hearty salutation, and set down his pack in some corner, where, as he expressed himself, it might be “out of the way.” He then immediately abandoned himself to the full current of conversation, and gave a detail of every particular of news that was within his knowledge. He could tell the farmer every thing that he desired to know—what number of corn-stalks appeared in the barn-yards wherever he had been, and what quantity of grain still remained uncut or in shock, and he took time to enumerate the whole distinctly. He was equally well prepared in other departments of intelligence, and so fascinating was his gossip, that, when the duties of any member of the family called them out of hearing, they were apt to linger so long, that the goodwife declared he was “a perfect offput to a’ wark.” This, however, was not meant to make him abate of his talkative humour; and neither did he: the whole budget was emptied first, and he received in turn the narratives of all and sundry. Then came the proposal from some of those whom he had gratified with his news, to “look what was in the pack.” The goods were accordingly lugged from their place of concealment, and every one’s hand was ready to pick out some necessary or some coveted piece of merchandise. The master discovered that, as he would be needing a suit ere long, it was as well to take it now. The mistress was just waiting for Thomas coming round to supply herself with a variety of articles, “for,” quoth she, “mony things are needit in a house.” The servants exhorted each other to think whether they did not require something, for it was impossible to say when another opportunity of getting it might occur. The ellwand was forthwith put into diligent requisition, the scissors snipt a little bit of the selvage, and an adroit “screed” separated the various cloths from the rapidly diminishing webs. The corners of many chests gave up their carefully-hoarded gains, with which cheap remnants were triumphantly secured. In the midst of this transfer of finery, the poor herd-boy looked on with a countenance so wofully expressive of the fact that he had not a farthing to spend, that some one took compassion on him, and, having laid out a trifling sum, had the satisfaction of making him perfectly happy with the equivalent, flinging it into his unexpectant arms, and exclaiming, “Here, callant, there’s something for you!” What a multiplicity of pleasing emotions had this trader the tact of calling into exercise, all of them redounding tenfold to his own proper advantage! It was impossible to say whether he cultivated his powers of talk from forethought, as knowing that they would produce a crisis favourable to his own interests, or if he indulged in them because gossiping was congenial to his own disposition. He had a sharp eye enough to what is called the main chance; but at the same time he did not possess that degree of intellectual depth which we might expect to find in one who could calculate upon exciting the purchasing propensities by a method so indirect. Most probably, therefore, his success in business was more the result of an accidental cast of mind than of wisdom prepense, or any aptitude beyond common for the arts of traffic, as considered by themselves.

Such, also, in most cases, is that talent which gets the name of “a fine turn for business.” The possessor exerts his powers of pleasing, alike when engaged in the concerns of his profession, and in society when there is no object to serve but that of passing time agreeably. His engaging address is productive of commercial advantages, but it is not a thing acquired and brought into exercise solely for that end. Some people, no doubt, finding themselves to have a prepossessing manner, do employ it systematically to promote their views of business; but by far the greater number employ it because they have it, and without reference to the pecuniary profit that may accrue. The pecuniary profit, however, follows not the less as its consequence; and we have the satisfaction of seeing urbanity of manners almost uniformly rewarded by attaining to easy circumstances, while the man of a gruff unsocial humour has usually to maintain a hard struggle with fortune. The mere packing of knowledge into the heads of children is not the only thing required to ensure their future respectability and happiness—the qualities of the heart also demand the fostering care of the instructor; and since so much depends on their temper and behaviour to those around them, parents cannot be too assiduous in the cultivation of affability, the possession of which virtue is the grand secret that confers “a fine turn for business.”

SETTING UP.

The taking of a shop, whether to set up a new business or translate an old one, is always a matter of deep and anxious concernment. On such an occasion, one generally gets into a state of fidgetiness and perplexity, which is felt to be far from disagreeable. A sentiment of unwonted enterprise rises in his mind. He is going, he thinks, to do a great thing—at least something beyond the usual range of commercial existence. In the first place, he pays a few sly and solitary visits to the place—not that he goes in to look about him—no, no; he is not for some time up to that point. He tries first how the premises look when simply walked past as if by an unconcerned passenger. As he passes, he casts an affectedly careless glance at the door and windows, taking care, however, to receive as deep an impression as possible of the whole bearing and deportment of the place. After walking to a sufficient distance, he turns and walks back, and sees how it looks when approached from a different point of the compass. Then he takes a turn along the other side of the street, or perhaps, if afraid to excite observation (and if the place be in Edinburgh), goes up a common stair, and takes a deliberate and secure observation from a window. His feeling is almost exactly the same as that of a lover making observations of a mistress, whose figure he wishes to ascertain before getting too deeply in love with her to put correct judgment out of the question. As, in the one case, stature is perhaps considered, complexion and outline of face duly weighed, and possibly some very modest inquiries instituted as to what Master Slender calls “possibilities,” so, in the other, does the shop-inspector consider all the particulars of the aspect and likelihood of the contemplated premises. Shops, it must be understood, have characters, exactly like human beings. Some have an open, generous, promising countenance, while others have a contracted, sinister, louring expression of phiz, according to the quantity of mason-work there may be in front. Some are of a far more _accessible_ character than others, with a kind of _facilis descensus_ in the entry that is in the highest degree favourable to custom. People can hardly avoid falling into such shops as they pass along the streets, for positively they gape like so many Scyllas for your reception, and goodwives, who, like Roderigo, have put money in their purses, are caught like so many rats without thinking of it. There are others, I grieve to say, with such a difficulty of entrance, either from a narrow door, a shut door, an elevation of the pavement, or a certain distance from the thoroughfare, that it requires an absolute determination to purchase such and such articles in such and such shops—a full _animus emendi_, as lawyers would say—to overcome the obstacle. Perhaps it does not matter for some businesses, which are not much overrun with competition, that they should be carried on in shops of this kind. If there be only one music-seller in the town, he might have his boutique in a twelfth story, and yet he would be sure to get all the natural custom of the place; but in the case of one out of some five hundred haberdashers, or some two thousand grocers, it is absolutely imperative that he should be established in some place with a fatal facility of access. In all cases, there is a combination of qualities in shops, as well as in men and women. There is something indescribable about it; but an experienced eye, pretty well acquainted with the characters of the streets [this is another subject] and parts of streets, could almost in a moment decide upon the probabilities of any given shop in a large city. He would combine in an instant in his own mind the various qualities, and, counting them into each other after the manner of Lieutenant Drummond, but by a figureless kind of arithmetic, assign at once the exact value of the shop to any class of traders. And shops have characters, too, in another sense of the word—that is, they have reputations. Let a shop have all the apparent advantages in the world, yet, if it be a shop in which several persons have committed _faux pas_ in business, it is naught. We often see an excellent shop thus lose caste, as it were, and become of hardly any value to its proprietor. Suppose some one has failed in it between terms, and deserted it: then do all the bill-stickers come in the first place, and paste it over with huge placards from top to bottom, exactly as a man drowned in the sea, however fine a fellow he may have been, gets encased in a few days in barnacles and shell-fish, the conchological part of the world taking that opportunity to show their contempt for the human. Though the character of the shop is not yet, perhaps, at its worst, yet, as it happens to remain unleased over the next term, the despairing landlord, some time in September or October, begins to let it “by the month or week” to all kinds of nameless people, who die and make no _sign_, such as men that show orreries, or auctioneers selling off bankrupt stocks, till at last it is as hopeless to think of getting a good tenant into it, as for a man with a bad character to expect a good place in the Excise. The shop is marked for ever; and unless, like the man in the Vicar of Wakefield, it can get a thoroughly new face and form, it has no chance whatsoever of resuming its place in the first rank of shops.

After having completely made up his mind to take a particular shop, he goes and asks advice. His confessor[7] readily consents to take a walk with him in that direction, and give his candid opinion upon the subject. The two walk arm in arm past the premises, the confessor alone looking, lest, in endeavouring to observe, they should themselves be observed. “I’ll tell you what,” says the confessor, “I like that shop very much. If the rent be at all suitable, I think you might do very well in it.” It is then proposed that the confessor should step in to inquire the rent; for though there be equal reasons why each should not expose himself as being on the outlook for a shop, the person not actually concerned has always least reluctance to submit to that disadvantage, being borne up, it would appear, by a conscious absence of design, while the guilt of the other would be betrayed by his first question. If the confessor reports favourably, then the individual who wants the premises ventures in himself, inspects the accommodations, and makes farther inquiries. The two afterwards retire together, and have a deep and serious consultation upon the subject.

In the deliberations of a person about to enter life in this way, there is always much that is extravagant, and much that is vague. I never yet knew it fail, that, if there was success at all, it arose from different sources from those which had been most securely calculated upon as likely to produce it. Suppose it is a business for the supply of some ordinary necessary of life: the novice reckons up almost all the people he knows in different parts of the town, as sure to become his customers; he expects, indeed, hardly any other kind of support. It is found, however, when he commences, that one friend is engaged in one way, and another in another, so that, with the exception, perhaps, of some benevolent old lady, who sends occasionally to buy a few trifles from him _upon principle_, all is waste and barren where he expected to reap a plentiful harvest. He finds, however, on the other hand, that he gets customers where he did not expect them. People seem to rise out of the earth, like the men of Cadmus, to buy from him. The truth is, he is resorted to by those who are disengaged at the time, and to whom his shop is convenient; and all the good-will of all the friends in the world will not get over, for his sake, the difficulty of some engagement elsewhere, or the inconvenience of distance.

It is also a very remarkable thing of people about to enter upon such an enterprise as we are now describing, that they often overlook the most important considerations of all and pay a very minute attention to trifles and things by the by. They perhaps fail to observe that there is not nearly enough of population around them to justify their setting up a particular business; but they fully appreciate and lay great stress upon the circumstance of having a water-pipe in the back room, by which they may be enabled to wash their hands at any time of the day. They may neither have capital nor range of intellect for the business; but they are top-sure that the woman who sells small wares in the area will supply them with a light for the fire every morning. The shop may be unsuitable in many important respects; but nothing could be better in its way than the place for a sign above the door. Even where every matter of real consequence is well weighed and found answerable, there is generally a fussy and festering anxiety about details, accompanied, in the sensations of the principal party, by peculiar dryness of mouth and excoriation of thought-chewed lip. Matters may be such that a confessor, with all the evil-foreboding qualities of a stormy-peterel, could not see a single flaw in the prospect; yet it is amusing in such cases to hear the intending trader laying as much stress upon the peculiar situation of a fire-place in the back room, or the willingness of the landlord to supply a padlock to the door, as if in these things, and in nothing else, lay all his hopes of profit and eventual respectability in life.

Suppose, however, that, after all kinds of fond and dreamy calculations, the shop has been taken and opened. I think there can hardly, for some time, be a more interesting sight to a benevolent on-looker, than the young and anxious trader. The shop almost throws itself out at the windows to attract the observation of the passer by. The youth himself stands prompt and alert behind his counter, never idling for a moment, nor permitting his shopboy to idle, but both busy, cutting, and brushing, and bustling about, whether there be any thing to do or not. If but an old lady be seen looking up at the window, or glancing in through the avenue of cheap prints that forms the doorway, what an angler-like eagerness in the mind of the trader that she would but _walk in_!—nothing more required—were she once within the shop, no fear but she is well done for. And when any body does go in to buy any thing, what a readiness to fly upon the article wanted—with what serviceable rapidity of finger is the parcel unbound—how polite and _impressé_ the manner in which the object is presented and laid out for inspection—what intense gratitude for the money wherewith it is paid! With what a solicitous air is a card finally put into your hand as a memorandum of the place!—a proceeding only the more eloquent when not accompanied by an actual request for your farther custom.

In a large city, advertising is necessarily resorted to as one of the modes, if not almost the only mode, of forming a business. Here it is obvious that a mere modest statement of the case will not do. Something must be said, to make the setting up of the new shop appear in the character of an _event_. The public attention must be arrested to the circumstance, as if it were a matter of public concernment. It must appear as if the interest of the community, and the interest of the shopman, were identified. No good bargains, no certainty of good articles, no safety of any kind, any where else. Such is the strain of his advertisements, which, though they make the judicious grieve, make a vast number of other people, and even some of the judicious, buy. The secret is this: A warm and highly coloured style is necessary with a new shopkeeper, to meet and counteract the indifference of the public towards his concerns. If he put forth a cool schedule of his goods and chattels, it does nothing for him, because it does not single him out from the great herd. But if he uses a striking and emphatic phraseology, and even mixes a little extravagance in the composition, it is apt to fix attention to him and his shop; and the people, being so warmly solicited, go to try. Again (and here, perhaps, lies the better part of the thing), the frequency and fervour of his advertisements at least convey the impression that he is anxious for business, and ready and willing to execute it; and as people like to deal with such persons, he is apt to be resorted to on that account, if upon no other. Frequent advertising is, upon the whole, a mark rather of a want of business, than of that kind of respectability which consists in the enjoyment of a concern already in full operation and productiveness; but with beginners, it is quite indispensable.

The difficulty of establishing a new business is fortunately got over in a small degree by a certain benevolent principle in human nature—a disposition to encourage the efforts of the young. Some people act so much under this sentiment, or have such an appetite for the sincere thanks of the needy, that they go to hardly any shops but those of new beginners. The sight of a haberdasher’s shop, in its first and many-coloured dawn, with prints, and ribands, and shop-bills, flying in all directions—or of a provision shop, where hams project their noses into the very teeth, almost, of the passer by, and cheeses lie gaping with a quarter cut out, as if ready to eat rather than to be eaten—or of a bookseller’s shop, where every fresh and trig volume upon the counter seems as if it would take the slightest hint of your will, and, starting up, pack itself off, without any human intervention whatsoever, to your lodgings—is irresistible to these people. They must go in, whether they want any thing or not, and, after buying some trifle as an earnest of future custom, get themselves delighted with a full recital of all the young trader’s feelings, and prospects, and capabilities, which he is ready to disclose to any one that will lay out sixpence, and appear to take an interest in his undertaking. If the customer be an old lady, she is interested in his youth, and inquires whether he be married or not. If not, then she wants him to get on well, so that he may soon be able to have a wife; if he be, and have children, then she sympathises but the more keenly; she thinks how much human happiness depends upon the success or failure of his undertaking—how one fond soul will watch with intense anxiety the daily progress of the business, taking an interest in almost every penny that comes in, and how many little mouths unconsciously depend upon what is done _here_, for the fare which childhood so much requires and so truly enjoys. She goes away, resolved to speak of the shop to all she knows, and perhaps in two or three days she is able to bring in a flock of young ladies who want various articles, and who, recommending the new beginner to others, aid materially in making up the steady business, which, with economy, perseverance, and suitable personal qualities, he at length acquires.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Bosom friend.

CONSULS.

The population of a large town is perpetually receiving accessions from the country—not for the purpose of increasing the aggregate of inhabitants, but to supply the waste of existence which takes place in such a scene, and to furnish a better selection for the peculiar offices and business of a city than what could be obtained from the successive generations of the ordinary inhabitants. Nothing can be more clear than that the youths born and bred in a large city have a less chance to establish themselves in its first-rate lines of business, than the lads who come in from the country as adventurers; the fact being, that the latter are a selection of stirring clever spirits from a large mass, while only the same proportion of the former are likely to possess the proper merit or aptitude. Besides, the town-bred lad is apt to have some points of silly pride about his status in society; he cannot do this and he cannot do that, for fear of the sneers of the numerous contemporaries under whose eyes he is always walking. But the gilly, hot from Banff or Inverness, who comes into the town, “with bright and flowing hair,” rugging and riving for a place in some writer’s office, or elsewhere—why, the fellow would push into the most sacred parts of a man’s house, like Roderick Random, and at the most unconscionable hours, in search of some prospective situation; and when he has got it, what cares he about what he does (within honesty) in order to advance himself, seeing that all whoever knew him before are on the other side of the Grampians. Thus, the sons of the respectable people of large cities are constantly retiring from the field—some to the East Indies, some to the West—some evanish nobody knows how—while their places are taken by settlers from all parts of the country, whose children, in their turn, give way to fresh importations. Then, there is a constant tide towards the capital, of all kinds of rural people, who, having failed to improve their fortunes in the country, are obliged to try what may be done in the town. A broken-down country merchant sets up a grocery shop in some suburb—a farmer who has been obliged to relinquish his _dulcia arva_, sets up an hostelry for carriers, and so forth. Every recurrence of Whitsunday and Martinmas sends in large droves of people on the tops of heavy carts, to pitch their camps in Edinburgh; many of them with but very uncertain prospects of making a livelihood when they get there, but yet the most of them astonished a year or two after to find that they are still living, with the children all at the school as formerly, although, to be sure, the “reeky toun” can never be like the green meadows and dear blue hills which they have left behind in Menteith, or Ayrshire, or Tweeddale. What change, to be sure, to these good people, is the close alley of the Old Town of Edinburgh, the changeless prospect of house tops and chimneys, and the black wall opposite to their windows, ever casting its dark shade into their little apartments, for the pleasant open fields in which they have sown and reaped for half a lifetime, and where every little rustic locality is endeared to them by a thousand delightful recollections! But yet it is amazing how habit and necessity will reconcile the mind to the most alien novelties. And, even here, there are some blessings. The place of worship (always an important matter to decent country people in Scotland) is perhaps nearer than it used to be. Mr Simpson’s chapel in the Potterrow is amazingly convenient. Education for the children, though dearer, is better and more varied. There is also a better chance of employment for the youngsters when they grow up. Then Sandy Fletcher, the —— carrier, goes past the door every Wednesday, with a cart-load of home reminiscences, and occasionally a letter or a parcel from some friend left at the place which they have deserted. By means of this excellent specimen of corduroyed honesty and worth, they still get all their butter and cheese from the sweet pastures of their own country side, so that every meal almost brings forward some agreeable association of what, from feeling as well as habit, they cannot help still calling _home_. Then it is always made a point with them to plant themselves in an outskirt of the town, corresponding to the part of the country from which they come, and where they think they will have at least a specimen of the fresh air. A Clydesdale family, for instance, hardly ever thinks of taking a house (at least for the first year or two) any where but in the Grassmarket, or about Lauriston, or the Canal Basin. People from East Lothian harbour about the Canongate. Bristo Street and the Causewayside are appropriated indefeasibly to settlers from Selkirkshire and Peeblesshire. Poll the people thereabouts, and you will find a third of them natives of those two counties. In fact, the New Town, or any thing beyond the Cowgate, is a kind of _terra borealis incognita_ to folk from the south of Scotland. They positively don’t know any thing about those places, except, perhaps, by report. Well, it must certainly be agreeable, if one is banished from the country into a town, at least to dwell in one of the outlets towards _that part of the country_; so that the exile may now and then cast his thoughts and his feelings straight along the highway towards the place endeared to him; and if he does not see the hills which overlook the home of his heart, at least, perhaps, hills from which he knows he can see other hills, from which the spot is visible—the long stages of fancy in straining back to the place

“——He ne’er forgets, though there he is forgot.”

There is one other grand source of comfort—in fact, an indispensable convenience—to people from the country living in a large city, namely, CONSULS. Every person in the circumstances described must be familiar with the character and uses of a CONSUL, though perhaps they never heard the _name_ before. The truth is, as from every district of broad Scotland there are less or more settlers of all kinds of ranks and orders, so among these there is always one family or person who serves to the occasional visitors from that part of the country, as well as to the regular settlers, all the purposes which a commercial Consul serves in a foreign port. The house of this person is a _howff_, or place of especial resort, to all and sundry connected with that particular locality. It is, in fact, the Consul-house of the district. Sometimes, when there is a considerable influx from a particular place, there is a Consul for almost every order of persons connected with that place, from the highest to the lowest. The Consul is a person—generally an old lady—of great kindliness of disposition, and who never can be put about by a visit at any time upon the most vaguely general invitation. Generally, a kind of open table—a tea-table it is—is kept every Sunday night, which is resorted to by all and sundry, like an “at home” in high life; and though the Consul herself and some of her family sit on certain defined and particular chairs during the whole evening, the rest are tenanted by relays of fresh visitors almost every hour, who pay their respects, take a cup, and, after a little conversation, depart. In general, the individuals resorting to these houses are as familiar with every particular of the system of the tea-table—yea, with every cracked cup, and all the initials upon the silver spoons—as the honest Consul herself. Community of nativity is the sole bond of this association, but hardly any could be stronger. A person from the country takes little interest in the gossip of the city, important as it may sometimes be. He likes to hear of all that is going on in the little village or parish from which he has been transplanted. All this, and more, he hears at the house of the Consul for that village, or parish, the same as you will be sure to find a London newspaper in the house of the British resident at Lisbon. Any death that may have happened there since his last visit—any birth—any marriage—any anything—he gets all in right trim at the Consul-house, with all the proper remarks, the whole having been imported on Thursday in the most regular manner by the carrier, or else on some other day by a visitant, who, though only a few hours in town, was sure to call _there_. At the Consul-house you will hear how the minister is now liked—who is likely to get most votes in the coming election—from whom Mrs —— bought her china when she was about to be married—and the promise of the crops, almost to a sheaf or a potato. But the topics are of endless variety. One thing is remarkable. The most determined scandal is bandied about respecting their ancient neighbours; and yet they all conspire to think that there is no sort of people to be compared with them in the mass. They will let nobody talk ill of them but themselves. There is sometimes a considerable difference in the characters and ranks of the individuals who frequent a Consul-house. Perhaps you find, among persons of higher degree and more dignified age, apprentice lads, who, being the children of old acquaintances of the Consul, are recommended by their mothers to spend their Sunday evenings here, as under a vicarial eye of supervision, and being sure to be out of harm’s way in the house of so respectable a person. These stolid youths, with their raw untamed faces, form a curious contrast, occasionally, to the more polished individuals who have been longer about town, such as writers’ clerks or licentiates of the church. Possibly they will sit you out five mortal hours in a Consul-house, without ever speaking a word, or even shifting their position on their chairs, staring with unvaried eyes, and hands compressed between knees, right into the centre of the room, and hearing all that is going on as if they heard not. At length the young cub rises to go away, and the only remark is, “Well, Willie, are you going home? Good-night.” After which, the Consul only remarks to the adults around her, “That’s ane o’ John Anderson’s laddies—a fine quiet callant.” But this holds good only respecting Consuls in a certain walk of life. There are houses where people of very high _style_, from a particular district, are wont to call and converse; and there are dens in the inferior parts of the town, to which only serving girls or boys (there is no rank among boys) resort. Every place, every rank, has its Consul. And not only is the Consul valuable as an individual who keeps a Sunday evening conversazione. She actually does a great deal of business for the particular district which she represents. If a townswoman wants a gown dyed, or to obtain _swatches_ of some new prints, or to purchase any peculiar article which requires some address in the purchasing, then is the Consul resorted to. A little square inexplicable epistle, with not nearly enough of fold to admit a wafer, and the phrase “for goods” on the corner, supposed to be a kind of shibboleth that exempts letters from the laws of the Post-office, comes in with the carrier, requesting that Mrs —— will be so good as go to this or that shop, and do this and that and t’other thing, and send the whole out by return of Pate Fairgrieve, and the payment will be rendered at next visit to town. Thus the Consul is a vast commission-agent, with only this difference, that she makes nothing by it to compensate her immense outlay of capital. The duties, however, of the Consulate are their own reward; and we doubt if Brutus, who first assumed the office, bore it with a prouder head or more satisfied heart, than many individuals whom we could point out. Henceforth, we do not doubt, people will refer to the days when such and such a person was Consul for their native village, in a style similar to the ancient chronology of Rome; and “Consule Tullo” itself will not be more familiar or more memorable language, than “in the Consulate [shall we so suppose?] of Mrs Bathgate!”

COUNTRY AND TOWN ACQUAINTANCES.

The exact balance of favours in ordinary acquaintanceship is a matter very difficult to be adjusted. Sometimes people think they are giving more entertainments than they get, and on other occasions you would suppose that they are mortally offended at their friends for not coming oftener to eat of their meat and drink of their cup. It is hard to say whether a desire of reserving or of squandering victuals predominates; for though one would argue that it is more natural to keep what one has than to give it away for nothing, yet, to judge by the common talk of the world, you are far more likely to give offence by coming too seldom than by coming too often to the tables of your friends. From this cause, I have often been amused to hear people, about whose company I was not very solicitous, making the most abject apologies for having visited me so seldom of late, but promising to behave a great deal better for the future—that is to say, to give me henceforward much more of what I never desired before, even in the smallest portions.

But this kindness of language is not confined to the party threatening a visit: the party threatened is also given to use equally sweet terms of discourse. “Really, you have been a great stranger lately. We thought we never were to see you again. What is there to hinder you of an evening to come over and chat a little, or take a hand with the Doctor and Eliza at whist? We are always so happy to see you. I assure you we are resolved to take it very ill; and if you don’t repay our last visit, we will never see you again.” With an equally amiable sincerity, the shocking person with whom you have been long quite tired, having ceased to gain any amusement or any eclat from the acquaintance, replies, “I must confess I _have_ been very remiss. Indeed, I was so ashamed of not having called upon you for such a length of time, that I could not venture to do it. But, now that the ice is broken, I really _will_ come some night soon. You may _depend_ upon it.” And so the two part off their several ways, the one surprised at having been betrayed into so many expressions of kindness towards an individual about whom he or she is quite indifferent, and the other, either benevolently resolving, in the simplicity of his heart, to pay the promised visit, or as much surprised at having been brought into circumstances where he was reduced to make such a promise—which, however, as he is sure to forget it in a few minutes, is a matter of very little moment. If these, however, be the puzzlements which beset a town acquaintanceship, ten times more difficult is it to adjust the mutual rights and balance of advantages appertaining to one in which the one party is of the town, and the other of the country. In most such cases, either the one party or the other has great and real cause of complaint. For example, a citizen of tolerable style, who has been confined to some laborious employment all the year round, amidst gas-light within doors, and a foggy and smoky atmosphere without, with what delight does he throw himself into the country some fine sunshiny day in September, for the purpose of paying a long-promised visit of three days to a country friend! He is received with boundless hospitality. The best bed-room, situated in that part of the house where you generally find a city drawing-room, is aired and provided in the most agreeable manner for his accommodation. The goodman rides about with him all day, and dines and drinks with him all night, except during those intervals when the lady or her daughters solace him with tunes on the piano, learned many years ago at a boarding-school in town. The whole house, in fact, from the worthy agriculturist-in-chief to the chicken that has latest chipped in the barn-yard, are at his service, and he drinks in health, and rapture, and a taste for natural objects, every hour. The three days are imperceptibly elongated to as many weeks, till at last he has become just like one of the family, calls the lady goodwife, and the daughters by their abbreviated Christian names, and is a very brother and more to his excellent entertainer. At length, replenished with as much health as will serve him through a whole twelvemonth of city life, rosy in cheek and in gill, sturdy as a pine on the hills, and thickened immensely about the centre of his person, he finds it necessary to take his leave. The whole of the worthy ruralists gather about him, and, as if not satisfied with what they have already done for him while he was in their presence, load him with other acts of kindness, the effect of which is only to be experienced on the way, or after he has reached his own home. If he could carry a ewe cheese on each side, like the bottles of John Gilpin, they would have no objection to give them. In fact, there is no bounds to the kindness, the sincere heartfelt kindness, of these people, except his capacity or willingness to receive. Of course, he feels all this most warmly for the time; and while the impression is strong upon him, he counter-invites right and left. The goodman is never to be a day in town without coming to take pot-luck. The ladies are to come in next winter, on purpose, and have a month of the amusements of the town, residing in his house. Any of their friends whatsoever, even unto the fourth generation, or no generation at all, he will be delighted to see, whenever they are in the city. He throws himself, his bosom, his house—all, all, open to them. But what is the real result of all this? He goes back to town, and resumes the serious labours of his profession. The roses fade from his cheeks, and gratitude from his heart. Some day, when he is up to the ears in a mysterious green box, like a pig in his trough, or a pullet in a well; or perhaps some day as he is rushing swiftly along the streets, intent upon some piece of important business, his city eyes awake upon a vision of the country, in the shape of that very friend who so lately was rendering him so many acts of kindness. The case is felt at once to be a scrape;—however, he must make the best of it. With almost breathless apprehension, he asks Mr Goodman what stay he is going to make in town. What joy!—he goes within an hour to Falkirk tryst! But, ah! this is but a short relief. He comes back the day after to-morrow, and can then spend a day. Well, a day it must be: it is all settled in a moment, and, three minutes after having entered the house, Mr Goodman finds himself shaken by the hand out at the door, which is closed behind him ere he can well believe that he has as yet seen his city friend. He walks a little way in a confused state of mind, hardly able to say distinctly that he is himself, or that his late guest is the identical good fellow he seemed to be three months ago. The whole appears a dream, and he thinks it must be hours since he entered the house, though it is only minutes. Falkirk tryst over, he comes back, and, at the appointed hour, attends his city acquaintance, who, meanwhile, having consulted with his spouse, has taken the opportunity, since there was to be a dinner at any rate, to invite all the stiff people he knows, in order to pay off his old debts. The honest agriculturist gets a place among the rest, perhaps a good one, but in such a scene he finds no entertainment, and hardly gets a word of conversation with his friend during the whole evening. At the proper hour he rises to take his leave among the rest. The host inquires when he leaves town—this is always a leading question for a country friend—hears, to his unspeakable comfort, that it is to be by the morning coach—and so good-night. Of course, after this, there is little inducement for Mr Goodman to send his daughters to spend a month in the house of his city friend. The girls, however, do come in somehow or other, and are living with some other person on a visit, when one day, walking along the most crowded and fashionable street, they meet their father’s friend arm in arm with his wife. Seeing that they have first perceived _him_, he runs forward in the kindest manner, and, after introducing them to his partner, inquires after every particular individual left at home. Some miscellaneous talk ensues, and then, just at the skirts of the conversation, when they are hovering on the point of separation, he throws in, “You will be sure to see us some evening before you leave town.” And then—and then there is no more about it.

A varied case often occurs as follows:—A young lady of perfect accomplishments, though of the middle ranks of life, happens to be particularly convenient to a neighbouring family of gentry in the country, where she is constantly invited by them, and becomes the bosom friend of all the young ladies, but only because her accomplishments are useful to them as a means of spending their time. But this acquaintance, though of use in the country, and there felt as involving no risk of dignity, becomes inconvenient when the parties happen to meet in town. The high-born demoiselle, who elsewhere would have rushed into the arms of her humble but ingenious friend, now tamely shakes her hand, and, with cold complaisance, addresses her thus: “Mamma is keeping no company this winter, but I dare say she would be glad to see you some evening to tea: and—good-morning.” Such is the world!

WHERE IS MY TRUNK?

It is well known in Scotland that the road from Edinburgh to Dundee, though only forty-three miles in extent, is rendered tedious and troublesome by the interposition of two arms of the sea, namely, the Friths of Forth and Tay, one of which is seven, and the other three miles across. Several rapid and well-conducted stage-coaches travel upon this road; but, from their frequent loading and unloading at the ferries, there is not only considerable delay to the travellers, but also rather more than the usual risk of damage and loss to their luggage. On one occasion it happened that the common chances against the safety of a traveller’s integuments were multiplied in a mysterious, but most amusing manner—as the following little narrative will show.

The gentleman in question was an inside passenger—a very tall man, which was so much the worse for him in that situation—and it appeared that his whole baggage consisted of a single black trunk—one of medium size, and no way remarkable in appearance. On our leaving Edinburgh, this trunk had been disposed in the boot of the coach, amidst a great variety of other trunks, bundles, and carpet bags, belonging to the rest of the passengers.

Having arrived at Newhaven, the luggage was brought forth from the coach, and disposed upon a barrow, in order that it might be taken down to the steam-boat which was to convey us across. Just as the barrow was moving off, the tall gentleman said,

“Guard, have you got my trunk?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” answered the guard; “you may be sure it’s there.”

“Not so sure of that,” quoth the gentleman; “whereabouts is it?”

The guard poked into the barrow, and looked in vain among the numberless articles for the trunk. At length, after he had noozled about for two or three minutes through all the holes and corners of the mass of integuments, he drew out his head, like a terrier tired of earthing a badger, and seemed a little nonplussed.

“Why, here it is in the boot!” exclaimed the passenger, “snug at the bottom, where it might have remained, I suppose, for you, till safely returned to the coach-yard in Edinburgh.”

The guard made an awkward apology, put the trunk upon the barrow, and away we all went to the steam-boat.

Nothing farther occurred till we were all standing beside the coach at Pettycur, ready to proceed on our journey through Fife.

Every thing seemed to have been stowed into the coach, and most of the passengers had taken their proper places, when the tall gentleman cried out,

“Guard, where is my trunk?”

“In the boot, sir,” answered the guard; “you may depend upon that.”

“I have not seen it put in,” said the passenger, “and I don’t believe it is there.”

“Oh, sir,” said the guard, quite distressed, “there can surely be no doubt about the trunk now.”

“There! I declare—there!” cried the owner of the missing property; “my trunk is still lying down yonder upon the sands. Don’t you see it? The sea, I declare, is just about reaching it. What a careless set of porters! I protest I never was so treated on any journey before.”

The trunk was instantly rescued from its somewhat perilous situation, and, all having been at length put to rights, we went on our way to Cupar.

Here the coach stops a few minutes at the inn, and there is generally a partial discharge of passengers. As some individuals, on the present occasion, had to leave the coach, there was a slight discomposure of the luggage, and various trunks and bundles were presently seen departing on the backs of porters, after the gentlemen to whom they belonged. After all seemed to have been again put to rights, the tall gentleman made his wonted inquiry respecting his trunk.

“The trunk, sir,” said the guard, rather pettishly, “is in the boot.”

“Not a bit of it,” said its owner, who in the meantime had been peering about. “There it lies in the lobby of the inn!”

The guard now began to think that this trunk was in some way bewitched, and possessed a power, unenjoyed by other earthly trunks, of removing itself or staying behind, according to its own good pleasure.

“The Lord have a care o’ us!” cried the astonished custodier of baggage, who, to do him justice, seemed an exceedingly sober and attentive person. “The Lord have a care o’ us, sir! That trunk’s no canny.”[8]

“It’s _canny_ enough, you fool,” said the gentleman sharply; “but only you don’t pay proper attention to it.”

The fact was, that the trunk had been taken out of the coach and placed in the lobby, in order to allow of certain other articles being got at which lay beneath. It was now once more stowed away, and we set forward upon the remaining part of our journey, hoping that there would be no more disturbance about this pestilent member of the community of trunks. All was right till we came to the lonely inn of St Michael’s, where a side-road turns off to St Andrew’s, and where it happened that a passenger had to leave us to walk to that seat of learning, a servant having been in waiting to carry his luggage.

The tall gentleman, hearing a bustle about the boot, projected his immensely long slender body through the coach window, in order, like the lady in the fairy tale, to see what he could see.

“Hollo, fellow!” cried he to the servant following the gentleman down the St Andrew’s road; “is not that my trunk? Come back, if you please, and let me inspect it.”

“The trunk, sir,” interposed the guard, in a sententious manner, “is that gemman’s trunk, and not yours: yours is in the boot.”

“We’ll make sure of that, Mr Guard, if you please. Come back, my good fellow, and let me see the trunk you have got with you.”

The trunk was accordingly brought back, and, to the confusion of the guard, who had thought himself fairly infallible for this time, it was the tall man’s property, as clear as brass nails could make it.

The trunk was now the universal subject of talk, both inside and outside, and every body said he would be surprised if it got to its journey’s end in safety. All agreed that it manifested a most extraordinary disposition to be lost, stolen, or strayed, but yet every one thought that there was a kind of special providence about it, which kept it on the right road after all; and, therefore, it became a fair subject of debate, whether the chances _against_, or the chances _for_, were likely to prevail.

Before we arrived at Newport, where we had to go on board the ferry steam-boat for Dundee, the conversation had gone into other channels, and, each being engaged about his own concerns, no one thought any more about the trunk, till just as the barrow was descending along the pier, the eternal long man cried out,

“Guard, have you got my trunk?”

“Oh, yes,” cried the guard very promptly; “I’ve taken care of it now. There it is on the top of all.”

“It’s no such thing,” cried a gentleman who had come into the coach at Cupar; “that’s _my_ trunk.”

Every body then looked about for the enchanted trunk; the guard ran back, and once more searched the boot, which he knew to have been searched to the bottom before; and the tall gentleman gazed over land, water, and sky, in quest of his necessary property.

“Well, guard,” cried he at length, “what a pretty fellow you are! There, don’t you see?—there’s my trunk thrust into the shed like a piece of lumber!”