"It is a magnificent trade in itself. Would that I had a monopoly of all the walls in London! The very arches of the bridges must be worth ten thousand a-year. The omnibuses are invaluable; the cabs are a mine of wealth; and the railway stations throughout England would give a revenue for an emperor. Poppins, my dear fellow, I fancy that you have hardly looked into the depths of it."
"Perhaps not," said Poppins. "Some objects to them that they're all lies. It isn't that I mind. As far as I can see, everything is mostly lies. The very worst article our people can get for sale, they call 'middlings;' the real middlings are 'very superior,' and so on. They're all lies; but they don't cost anything, and all the world knows what they mean. Bad things must be bought and sold, and if we said our things was bad, nobody would buy them. But I can't understand throwing away so much money and getting nothing."
Poppins possessed a glimmering of light, but it was only a glimmering. He could understand that a man should not call his own goods middling; but he could not understand that a man is only carrying out the same principle in an advanced degree, when he proclaims with a hundred thousand voices in a hundred thousand places, that the article which he desires to sell is the best of its kind that the world has yet produced. He merely asserts with his loudest voice that his middlings are not middlings. A little man can see that he must not cry stinking fish against himself; but it requires a great man to understand that in order to abstain effectually from so suicidal a proclamation, he must declare with all the voice of his lungs, that his fish are that moment hardly out of the ocean. "It's the poetry of euphemism," Robinson once said to Poppins;—but he might as well have talked Greek to him.
Robinson often complained that no one understood him; but he forgot that it is the fate of great men generally to work alone, and to be not comprehended. The higher a man raises his head, the more necessary is it that he should learn to lean only on his own strength, and to walk his path without even the assistance of sympathy. The greedy Jones had friends. Poppins with his easy epicurean laisser aller,—he had friends. The decent Brown, who would so fain be comfortable, had friends. But for Robinson, there was no one on whose shoulder he could rest his head, and from whose heart and voice he could receive sympathy and encouragement.
From one congenial soul,—from one soul that he had hoped to find congenial,—he did look for solace; but even here he was disappointed. It has been told that Maryanne Brown did at last consent to name the day. This occurred in May, and the day named was in August. Robinson was very anxious to fix it at an earlier period, and the good-natured girl would have consented to arrange everything within a fortnight. "What's the use of shilly-shallying?" said she to her father. "If it is to be done, let it be done at once. I'm so knocked about among you, I hardly know where I am." But Mr. Brown would not consent. Mr. Brown was very feeble, but yet he was very obstinate. It would often seem that he was beaten away from his purpose, and yet he would hang on it with more tenacity than that of a stronger man. "Town is empty in August, George, and then you can be spared for a run to Margate for two or three days."
"Oh, we don't want any nonsense," said Maryanne; "do we, George?"
"All I want is your own self," said Robinson.
"Then you won't mind going into lodgings for a few months," said Brown.
Robinson would have put up with an attic, had she he loved consented to spread her bridal couch so humbly; but Maryanne declared with resolution that she would not marry till she saw herself in possession of the rooms over the shop.
"There'll be room for us all for awhile," said old Brown.