Mary Marston | Page 6

yard-measure, his chest as nearly touching the
counter as the protesting adjacent parts would permit, his broad smooth
face turned up at right angles, and his mouth, eloquent even to
solemnity on the merits of the article, now hiding, now disclosing a
gulf of white teeth. No sooner was anything admitted into stock, than
he bent his soul to the selling of it, doing everything that could be done,
saying everything he could think of saying, short of plain lying as to its
quality: that he was not guilty of. To buy well was a care to him, to sell
well was a greater, but to make money, and that as speedily as possible,
was his greatest care, and his whole ambition.
John Turnbull in his gig, as he drove along the road to the town, and
through the street approached his shop-door, showed to the chance
observer a man who knew himself of importance, a man who might
have a soul somewhere inside that broad waistcoat; as he drew up,
threw the reins to his stable-boy, and descended upon the pavement--as
he stepped down into the shop even, he looked a being in whom son or
daughter or friend might feel some honest pride; but, the moment he
was behind the counter and in front of a customer, he changed to a
creature whose appearance and carriage were painfully contemptible to
any beholder who loved his kind; he had lost the upright bearing of a
man, and cringed like an ape. But I fear it was thus he had gained a
portion at least of his favor with the country-folk, many of whom much
preferred his ministrations to those of his partner. A glance, indeed,
from the one to the other, was enough to reveal which must be the
better salesman--and to some eyes which the better man.
In the narrow walk of his commerce--behind the counter, I mean-- Mr.
Marston stood up tall and straight, lank and lean, seldom bending more
than his long neck in the direction of the counter, but doing everything
needful upon it notwithstanding, from the unusual length of his arms
and his bony hands. His forehead was high and narrow, his face pale
and thin, his hair long and thin, his nose aquiline and thin, his eyes
large, his mouth and chin small. He seldom spoke a syllable more than
was needful, but his words breathed calm respect to every customer.
His conversation with one was commonly all but over as he laid
something for approval or rejection on the counter: he had already

taken every pains to learn the precise nature of the necessity or desire;
and what he then offered he submitted without comment; if the thing
was not judged satisfactory, he removed it and brought another. Many
did not like this mode of service; they would be helped to buy; unequal
to the task of making up their minds, they welcomed any aid toward it;
and therefore preferred Mr. Turnbull, who gave them every imaginable
and unimaginable assistance, groveling before them like a man whose
many gods came to him one after the other to be worshiped; while Mr.
Marston, the moment the thing he presented was on the counter, shot
straight up like a poplar in a sudden calm, his visage bearing witness
that his thought was already far away--in heavenly places with his wife,
or hovering like a perplexed bee over some difficult passage in the New
Testament; Mary could have told which, for she knew the meaning of
every shadow that passed or lingered on his countenance.
His partner and his like-minded son despised him, as a matter of course;
his unbusiness-like habits, as they counted them, were the constantly
recurring theme of their scorn; and some of these would doubtless have
brought him the disapprobation of many a business man of a moral
development beyond that of Turnbull; but Mary saw nothing in them
which did not stamp her father the superior of all other men she knew.
To mention one thing, which may serve as typical of the man: he not
unfrequently sold things under the price marked by his partner. Against
this breach of fealty to the firm Turnbull never ceased to level his
biggest guns of indignation and remonstrance, though always without
effect. He even lowered himself in his own eyes so far as to quote
Scripture like a canting dissenter, and remind his partner of what came
to a house divided against itself. He did not see that the best thing for
some houses must be to come to pieces. "Well, but, Mr. Turnbull, I
thought it was marked too high," was the other's invariable answer.
"William, you are a fool," his partner would rejoin for the hundredth
time. "Will you never understand