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'Brien, where is the salmon-coloured sarsenet? 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."

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