"I thought so--I thought so. Can I do anything for you?
"No, thank you," said Mr. Hart, "we don't want any clothes."
"That's a pity; I could have served you cheap. But I didn't mean in that way, though I'm always ready for business--always ready. I know a customer when I see one. I'm an old resident here, and there is something you might want to know."
"We are looking for lodgings."
The shopkeeper replied eagerly, "I have the very thing you want, the very thing. Two rooms or four--made for you, made for you."
"You sell all your things ready-made," observed Mr. Hart, with a humorous look.
"Yes, yes," said the shopkeeper, with a good-humoured smile, rubbing his hands slowly over one another, as though he were washing them with invisible soap; "all ready-made, all ready-made."
What most attracted you towards this man were his eyes. They fairly sparkled with humour. But for their remarkable brightness Mr. Hart would have passed on, had he been allowed to do so; for the matter of that, however, the shopkeeper might have barred his way, being, as are all of his race, singularly tenacious in the negotiation of a bargain. And here there was a bargain in question; the strangers wanted lodgings; he had lodgings to let. To hesitate with such a man is to be lost. Mr. Hart hesitated.
"Come and see them," said the shopkeeper, and did not wait for acquiescence in words, but led the way.
They followed him, like sheep. There was magnetism in the man. He would make you buy a thing if you did not want it. That you did not want it did not matter to him; he had it to sell. To sell it was his business; and in his business he, as a representative man, beat the world.