The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson Part 4

"And now about gla.s.s," said Robinson, as soon as the three partners had retired from the outside flags into the interior of the house.

"It must be plate, of course," said Jones. Plate! He might as well have said when wanting a house, that it must have walls.

"I rather think so," said Robinson; "and a good deal of it."

"I don't mind a good-sized common window," said Brown.

"A deal better have them uncommon," said Robinson, interrupting him.

"And remember, sir, there's nothing like gla.s.s in these days. It has superseded leather altogether in that respect."

"Leather!" said Mr. Brown, who was hardly quick enough for his junior partner.

"Of all our materials now in general use," said Robinson, "gla.s.s is the most brilliant, and yet the cheapest; the most graceful and yet the strongest. Though transparent it is impervious to wet. The eye travels through it, but not the hailstorm. To the power of gas it affords no obstacle, but is as efficient a barrier against the casualties of the street as an iron shutter. To that which is ordinary it lends a grace; and to that which is graceful it gives a double l.u.s.tre. Like a good advertis.e.m.e.nt, it multiplies your stock tenfold, and like a good servant, it is always eloquent in praise of its owner. I look upon plate gla.s.s, sir, as the most glorious product of the age; and I regard the tradesman who can surround himself with the greatest quant.i.ty of it, as the most in advance of the tradesmen of his day. Oh, sir, whatever we do, let us have gla.s.s."

"It's beautiful to hear him talk," said Mr. Brown; "but it's the bill I'm a thinking of."

"If you will only go enough ahead, Mr. Brown, you'll find that n.o.body will trouble you with such bills."

"But they must be paid some day, George."

"Of course they must; but it will never do to think of that now.

In twelve months or so, when we have set the house well going, the payment of such bills as that will be a mere nothing,--a thing that will be pa.s.sed as an item not worth notice. Faint heart never won fair lady, you know, Mr. Brown." And then a cloud came across George Robinson's brow as he thought of the words he had spoken; for his heart had once been faint, and his fair lady was by no means won.

"That's quite true," said Jones; "it never does. Ha! ha! ha!"

Then the cloud went away from George Robinson's brow, and a stern frown of settled resolution took its place. At that moment he made up his mind, that when he might again meet that giant butcher he would forget the difference in their size, and accost him as though they two were equal. What though some fell blow, levelled as at an ox, should lay him low for ever. Better that, than endure from day to day the unanswered taunts of such a one as Jones!

Mr. Brown, though he was not quick-witted, was not deficient when the feelings of man and man were concerned. He understood it all, and taking advantage of a moment when Jones had stepped up the shop, he pressed Robinson's hand and said,--"You shall have her, George. If a father's word is worth anything, you shall have her." But in this case,--as in so many others,--a father's word was not worth anything.

"But to business!" said Robinson, shaking off from him all thoughts of love.

After that Mr. Brown had not the heart to oppose him respecting the gla.s.s, and in that matter he had everything nearly his own way. The premises stood advantageously at the comer of a little alley, so that the window was made to jut out sideways in that direction, and a full foot and a half was gained. On the other side the house did not stand flush with its neighbour,--as is not unfrequently the case in Bishopsgate Street,--and here also a few inches were made available.

The next neighbour, a quiet old man who sold sticks, threatened a lawsuit; but that, had it been inst.i.tuted, would have got into the newspapers and been an advertis.e.m.e.nt. There was considerable trouble about the entrance. A wide, commanding centre doorway was essential; but this, if made in the desirable proportions, would have terribly crippled the side windows. To obviate this difficulty, the exterior s.p.a.ce allotted for the entrance between the frontage of the two windows was broad and n.o.ble, but the gla.s.s splayed inwards towards the shop, so that the absolute door was decidedly narrow.

"When we come to have a crowd, they won't get in and out," said Jones.

"If we could only crush a few to death in the doorway our fortune would be made," said Robinson.

"G.o.d forbid!" said Mr. Brown; "G.o.d forbid! Let us have no bloodshed, whatever we do."

In about a month the house was completed, and much to the regret of both the junior partners, a considerable sum of ready money was paid to the tradesmen who performed the work. Mr. Jones was of opinion that by sufficient cunning such payments might be altogether evaded.

No such thought rested for a moment in the bosom of Mr. Robinson. All tradesmen should be paid, and paid well. But the great firm of Brown, Jones, and Robinson would be much less likely to scrutinize the price at which plate gla.s.s was charged to them per square foot, when they were taking their hundreds a day over the counter, than they would be now when every s.h.i.+lling was of importance to them.

"For their own sake you shouldn't do it," said he to Mr. Brown. "You may be quite sure they don't like it."

"I always liked it myself," said Mr. Brown. And thus he would make little dribbling payments, by which an unfortunate idea was generated in the neighbourhood that money was not plentiful with the firm.

CHAPTER V.

THE DIVISION OF LABOUR.

There were two other chief matters to which it was now necessary that the Firm should attend; the first and primary being the stock of advertis.e.m.e.nts which should be issued; and the other, or secondary, being the stock of goods which should be obtained to answer the expectations raised by those advertis.e.m.e.nts.

"But, George, we must have something to sell," said Mr. Brown, almost in despair. He did not then understand, and never since has learned the secrets of that commercial science which his younger partner was at so much pains to teach. There are things which no elderly man can learn; and there are lessons which are full of light for the new recruit, but dark as death to the old veteran.

"It will be so doubtless with me also," said Robinson, soliloquizing on the subject in his melancholy mood. "The day will come when I too must be pushed from my stool by the workings of younger genius, and shall sink, as poor Mr. Brown is now sinking, into the foggy depths of fogeydom. But a man who is a man--" and then that melancholy mood left him, "can surely make his fortune before that day comes. When a merchant is known to be worth half a million, his fogeydom is respected."

That necessity of having something to sell almost overcame Mr. Brown in those days. "What's the good of putting down 5,000 Kolinski and Minx Boas in the bill, if we don't possess one in the shop?"

he asked; "we must have some if they're asked for." He could not understand that for a first start effect is everything. If customers should want Kolinski Boas, Kolinski Boas would of course be forthcoming,--to any number required; either Kolinski Boas, or quasi Kolinski, which in trade is admitted to be the same thing. When a man advertises that he has 40,000 new paletots, he does not mean that he has got that number packed up in a box. If required to do so, he will supply them to that extent,--or to any further extent. A long row of figures in trade is but an elegant use of the superlative. If a tradesman can induce a lady to buy a diagonal Osnabruck cashmere shawl by telling her that he has 1,200 of them, who is injured? And if the shawl is not exactly a real diagonal Osnabruck cashmere, what harm is done as long as the lady gets the value for her money? And if she don't get the value for her money, whose fault is that? Isn't it a fair stand-up fight? And when she tries to buy for 4_l._, a shawl which she thinks is worth about 8_l._, isn't she dealing on the same principles herself? If she be lucky enough to possess credit, the shawl is sent home without payment, and three years afterwards fifty per cent. is perhaps offered for settlement of the bill. It is a fair fight, and the ladies are very well able to take care of themselves.

And Jones also thought they must have something to sell. "Money is money," said he, "and goods is goods. What's the use of windows if we haven't anything to dress them? And what's the use of capital unless we buy a stock?"

With Mr. Jones, George Robinson never cared to argue. The absolute impossibility of pouring the slightest ray of commercial light into the dim chaos of that murky mind had long since come home to him. He merely shook his head, and went on with the composition on which he was engaged. It need hardly be explained here that he had no idea of encountering the public throng on their opening day, without an adequate a.s.sortment of goods. Of course there must be shawls and cloaks; of course there must be m.u.f.fs and boas; of course there must be hose and handkerchiefs. That dressing of the windows was to be the special care of Mr. Jones, and Robinson would take care that there should be the wherewithal. The dressing of the windows, and the parading of the shop, was to be the work of Jones. His ambition had never soared above that, and while serving in the house on Snow Hill, his utmost envy had been excited by the youthful aspirant who there walked the boards, and with an oily courtesy handed chairs to the ladies. For one short week he had been allowed to enter this Paradise. "And though I looked so sweet on them," said he, "I always had my eye on them. It's a grand thing to be down on a well-dressed woman as she's hiding a roll of ribbon under her cloak." That was his idea of grandeur!

A stock of goods was of course necessary, but if the firm could only get their name sufficiently established, that matter would be arranged simply by written orders to two or three wholesale houses.

Compet.i.tion, that beautiful science of the present day, by which every plodding cart-horse is converted into a racer, makes this easy enough. When it should once become known that a firm was opening itself on a great scale in a good thoroughfare, and advertising on real, intelligible principles, there would be no lack of goods.

"You can have any amount of hose you want, out of Cannon Street,"

said Mr. Robinson, "in forty-five minutes. They can be brought in at the back while you are selling them over the counter."

"Can they?" said Mr. Brown: "perhaps they can. But nevertheless, George, I think I'll buy a few. It'll be an ease to my mind."

He did so; but it was a suicidal act on his part. One thing was quite clear, even to Mr. Jones. If the firm commenced business to the extent which they contemplated, it was out of the question that they should do everything on the ready-money principle. That such a principle is antiquated, absurd, and uncommercial; that it is opposed to the whole system of trade as now adopted in this metropolis, has been clearly shown in the preface to these memoirs. But in this instance, in the case of Brown, Jones, and Robinson, the doing so was as impracticable as it would have been foolish, if practicable. Credit and credit only was required. But of all modes of extinguis.h.i.+ng credit, of crus.h.i.+ng, as it were, the young baby in its cradle, there is none equal to that of spending a little ready money, and then halting. In trade as in love, to doubt,--or rather, to seem to doubt,--is to be lost. When you order goods, do so as though the bank were at your back. Look your victim full in the face, and write down your long numbers without a falter in your pen. And should there seem a hesitation on his part, do not affect to understand it. When the articles are secured, you give your bill at six months' date; then your credit at your bankers,--your discount system,--commences.

That is another affair. When once your bank begins that with you,--and the banks must do so, or they may put up their shutters,--when once your bank has commenced, it must carry on the game. You are floated then, placed well in the centre of the full stream of commerce, and it must be your own fault if you do not either retire with half a million, or become bankrupt with an eclat, which is worth more than any capital in refitting you for a further attempt. In the meantime it need hardly be said that you yourself are living on the very fat of the land.

But birds of a feather should flock together, and Mr. Brown and Mr.

Robinson were not exactly of the same plumage.

It was finally arranged that Mr. Robinson should have carte blanche at his own particular line of business, to the extent of fifteen hundred pounds, and that Mr. Brown should go into the warehouse and lay out a similar sum in goods. Both Jones and Mrs. Jones accompanied the old man, and a sore time he had of it. It may here be remarked that Mrs. Jones struggled very hard to get a footing in the shop, but on this point it should be acknowledged that her husband did his duty for a while.

"It must be you or I, Sarah Jane," said he; "but not both."

"I have no objection in life," said she; "you can stay at home, if you please."

"By no means," he replied. "If you come here, and your father permits it, I shall go to America. Of course the firm will allow me for my share." She tried it on very often after that, and gave the firm much trouble, but I don't think she got her hand into the cash drawer above once or twice during the first twelve months.

The division of labour was finally arranged as follows. Mr. Brown was to order the goods; to hire the young men and women, look after their morality, and pay them their wages; to listen to any special applications when a desire might be expressed to see the firm; and to do the heavy respectable parental business. There was a little back room with a sky-light, in which he was to sit; and when he was properly got up, his manner of shaking his head at the young people who misbehaved themselves, was not ineffective. There is always danger when young men and women are employed together in the same shop, and if possible this should be avoided. It is not in human nature that they should not fall in love, or at any rate amuse themselves with ordinary flirtations. Now the rule is that not a word shall be spoken that does not refer to business. "Miss...o...b..ien, where is the salmon-coloured sa.r.s.enet? or, Mr. Green, I'll trouble you for the ladies' sevens." Nothing is ever spoken beyond that. "Morals, morals, above everything!" Mr. Brown was once heard to shout from his little room, when a whisper had been going round the shop as to a concerted visit to the Crystal Palace. Why a visit to the Crystal Palace should be immoral, when talked of over the counter, Mr. Brown did not explain on that occasion.

"A very nice set of young women," the compiler of these memoirs once remarked to a commercial gentleman in a large way, who was showing him over his business, "and for the most part very good-looking."

"Yes, sir, yes; we attend to their morals especially. They generally marry from us, and become the happy mothers of families."

"Ah," said I, really delighted in my innocence. "They've excellent opportunities for that, because there are so many decent young men about."

He turned on me as though I had calumniated his establishment with a libel of the vilest description. "If a whisper of such a thing ever reaches us, sir," said he, quite alive with virtuous indignation; "if such a suspicion is ever engendered, we send them packing at once! The morals of our young women, sir--" And then he finished his sentence simply by a shake of his head. I tried to bring him into an argument, and endeavoured to make him understand that no young woman can become a happy wife unless she first be allowed to have a lover.