those young men let away early from the counter to improve what you please to call their minds. Pretty notions you pick up among a set of free-thinkers, and I don't know what! When I was a girl, people never talked of minds—intellect, I believe you call it. Nonsense! a new-fangled thing, just come up; and the sooner it goes out, the better.
MRS. CAUDLE DOES A "LITTLE SHOPPING." |
"Don't tell me! What are shops for, if they're not to be open late and early too? And what are shopmen, if they're not always to attend upon their customers? People pay for what they have, I suppose, and aren't to be told when they shall come and lay their money out, and when they sha'n't? Thank goodness! if one shop shuts, another keeps open; and I always think it a duty I owe to myself to go to the shop that's open last: it's the only way to punish the shopkeepers that are idle, and give themselves airs about early hours.
"Besides, there's some things I like to buy best at candle-light. Oh, don't talk to me about humanity! Humanity, indeed, for a pack of tall, strapping young fellows—some of 'em big enough to be shown for giants! And what have they to do? Why nothing, but to stand behind a counter, and talk civility. Yes, I know your