From the Easy Chair, vol 1 | Page 8

tender sex by clothing them in silks cut in a certain
form, and seating them in a high wooden box on yellow wheels.
And upon us, also. When the Easy Chair beholds the silken Misses
Spanker rolling by, superior, upon those yellow wheels, it is with
difficulty that it recalls the cheese and sausage from which all that
splendor springs. To-morrow it will be Mrs. O'Finnigan's grandchildren
who will look down from their yellow wheels at the peanut and apple
stands, and wonder how persons can be so vulgar as to buy candy in the
streets. It is a whim of Mrs. Grundy's, who is all whimsey. She will not
let us buy a piece of simple candy at the corner, but she will allow us to
drag a silk dress over the garbage of the pavement. 'Tis a whimsical
sovereign. But we are so carefully trained that it is not easy to disobey
her. If to prove your independence you should stop to buy the candy,
would the pleasure of asserting yourself balance the unpleasant
consciousness that you were wondered at and laughed at?
But the text was shops, and we have drifted into this episode because
Mrs. O'Finnigan sells peanut candy in her shop upon the sidewalk near
the site of Corporal Thompson's Broadway Cottage, in the midst of the
gay spectacle of a summer day. And within a stone's-toss of her stand
how many fine houses you will see, and how many other fascinating
shops! Our English ancestors were called a shopkeeping nation by
Napoleon; but it is his own Frenchmen and Frenchwomen who have
the true secret of shopkeeping. They make shops fascinating. They
have made shopkeeping a fine art. The other day the Easy Chair
stepped into a shop in Maiden Lane, prepared to spend a very pretty
sum of money, for a very proper purpose. But if it had invaded the
shopkeeper's house, which is his castle, or threatened his hat, which is
his crown, it could not have been received more coolly. The disdainful
indifference with which its question was answered was exquisitely
comical; and the shopkeeper proceeded to look for what was required
with a superb carelessness, and an air of utter weariness and disgust of
this incessant doing of favors to the most undeserving and insignificant

people. It was plainly an act of pure grace that the Easy Chair was not
instantly shot into the street as rubbish, or given in charge to the police
as a common vagabond.
This worthy attendant--doubtless very estimable in his private
capacity--is a serious injury to the business which he is supposed to
help. He does not in the least understand his profession. Let an Easy
Chair advise him to run over the sea to Paris, and observe how they
keep shop in that capital. Does he want a cravat? Here is a houri, neatly
dressed, evidently long waiting for him especially, and eager to serve
him. "Is it a cravat that Monsieur wishes? Charming! The most
ravishing styles are just ready! Is it blue, or this, or that, that Monsieur
prefers? Monsieur's taste is perfect. Look! It is a miracle of beauty that
he selects. Will he permit?" And before you know it, you foolish fellow,
who don't understand the first principle of your calling--before you
know it, she has thrown it around your neck, she has tied it deftly under
your chin, and that pretty face is looking into yours, and that pleasant
voice is saying, "Nothing could be better. It is the most smiling effect
possible!" You might as well hope to escape the sirens, as to go from
under those hands without buying that cravat.
This is shopkeeping, and a little study of the art, as thus practised,
would be of the utmost service to the Easy Chair's friend in Maiden
Lane. The shops there are pretty, and especially during the holidays
they are glittering, but they are a little cold and formal. The air of the
Boulevards is to be detected only in the neighborhood of Corporal
Thompson's Broadway Cottage. Whether cravats are there wafted
around the buyer's neck, as it were, entangling him hopelessly in silken
and satin webs, the Easy Chair does not know. But it can believe it, as
it passes by upon the outside, and beholds the windows which Paris
could hardly surpass. Through those windows it sees that, as in Paris,
the attendants are often women. It is thereby reminded that in Paris the
women are among the most accomplished accountants also; and it
remembers that in the same city men are cooks. It is very sure that
when Madame Welles, who was afterwards the Marchioness De
Lavalette, became at the death of her husband the head of the great
banking-house, her cook was a man.