"He won't come often, George, you may be sure."
"That I should have planned these glories for him! Well, well; be it so. What is the pageantry to me? It has been merely done to catch the butterflies, and of these he is surely the largest. I will sit alone above, and work there with my brain for the service of the firm, while you below are satisfying the eyes of the crowd."
And so it had been, as was told in that chapter which was devoted to the opening day of the house. Robinson had sat alone in the very room in which he had encountered Brisket, and had barely left his seat for one moment when the first rush of the public into the shop had made his heart leap within him. There the braying of the horn in the street, and the clatter of the armed horsemen on the pavement, and the jokes of the young boys, and the angry threatenings of the policemen, reached his ears. "It is well," said he; "the ball has been set a-rolling, and the work that has been well begun is already half completed. When once the steps of the unthinking crowd have habituated themselves to move hither-ward, they will continue to come with the constancy of the tide, which ever rolls itself on the same strand." And then he tasked himself to think how that tide should be made always to flow,—never to ebb. "They must be brought here," said he, "ever by new allurements. When once they come, it is only in accordance with the laws of human nature that they should leave their money behind them." Upon that, he prepared the words for another card, in which he begged his friends, the public of the city, to come to Magenta House, as friends should come. They were invited to see, and not to buy. The firm did not care that purchases should be made thus early in their career. Their great desire was that the arrangements of the establishment should be witnessed before any considerable portion of the immense stock had been moved for the purpose of retail sale. And then the West End public were especially requested to inspect the furs which were being collected for the anticipated sale of the next winter. It was as he wrote these words that he heard that demand for the African monkey muff, and heard also Mr. Jones's discreet answer. "Yes," said he to himself; "before we have done, ships shall come to us from all coasts; real ships. From Tyre and Sidon, they shall come; from Ophir and Tarshish, from the East and from the West, and from the balmy southern islands. How sweet will it be to be named among the Merchant Princes of this great commercial nation!" But he felt that Brown and Jones would never be Merchant Princes, and he already looked forward to the day when he would be able to emancipate himself from such thraldom.
It has been already said that a considerable amount of business was done over the counter on the first day, but that the sum of money taken was not as great as had been hoped. That this was caused by Mr. Brown's injudicious mode of going to work, there could be no doubt. He had filled the shelves of the shop with cheap articles for which he had paid, and had hesitated in giving orders for heavy amounts to the wholesale houses. Such orders had of course been given, and in some cases had been given in vain; but quite enough of them had been honoured to show what might have been done, had there been no hesitation. "As a man of capital, I must object," he had said to Mr. Robinson, only a week before the house was opened. "I wish I could make you understand that you have no capital." "I would I could divest you of the idea and the money too," said Robinson. But it was all of no use. A domestic fowl that has passed all its days at a barn-door can never soar on the eagle's wing. Now Mr. Brown was the domestic fowl, while the eagle's pinion belonged to his youngest partner. By whom in that firm the kite was personified, shall not here be stated.
Brisket on that day soon left the shop; but as Maryanne Brown remained there, Robinson did not descend among the throng. There was no private door to the house, and therefore he was forced to walk out between the counters when he went to his dinner. On that occasion, he passed close by Miss Brown, and met that young lady's eye without quailing. She looked full upon him: and then, turning her face round to her sister, tittered with an air of scorn.
"I think he's been very badly used," said Sarah Jane.
"And who has he got to blame but his own want of spirit?" said the other. This was spoken in the open shop, and many of the young men and women heard it. Robinson, however, merely walked on, raising his hat, and saluting the daughters of the senior partner. But it must be acknowledged that such remarks as that greatly aggravated the misery of his position.
It was on the evening of that day, when he was about to leave the establishment for the night, that he heard a gentle creeping step on the stairs, and presently Mrs. Jones presented herself in the room in which he was sitting. Now if there was any human fellow-creature on the face of this earth whom George Robinson had brought himself to hate, that human fellow-creature was Sarah Jane Jones. Jones himself he despised, but his feeling towards Mrs. Jones was stronger than contempt. To him it was odious that she should be present in the house at all, and he had obtained from her father a direct promise that she should not be allowed to come behind the counters after this their opening day.
"George," she said, coming up to him, "I have come upstairs because I wish to have a few words with you private."
"Will you take a chair?" said he, placing one for her. One is bound to be courteous to a lady, even though that lady be a harpy.