“DAKE DOT RING.”
One venerable Jew was very anxious to sell me a ring, the price of which he fixed at one hundred and twenty dollars, “and no abatement.” (When a Jew diamond merchant says “no abatement,” that settles it. There is none.)
“Dake dot ring, put him in your bocket, go to any scheweler in Rechent street, and oof you can get him vor dwice de monish I will give him to you.”
“What!” was my reply, “do you say that I, a perfect stranger to you, may carry off a ring worth forty pounds? Suppose I shouldn’t come back with it?”
“Ach, ma tear sir, Philip (my American friend) vouldn’t pring nobody here vot vould do such a ting. Dake der ring, ma tear sir, and see about him. It ish a bargain.”
Philip or any one of the guild would be allowed to carry away a king’s ransom.
Would, oh would, that the other people of the world were equally honest and upright. Still, I wouldn’t advise any one to depend upon their word in a purchase. They have two kinds of morality. A trade with them is a battle royal, in which each tries to get the better of the other, but the word once passed is never broken.
The merchant sits all day at his table, his meals, always a cut of beef and greens, with a pewter of bitter beer, being brought to him from the kitchen below. He sits and eats, never permitting, however, his eating and drinking to interfere with his business. He would put down his pot of beer to continue a trade any time, something I know a great many Americans would not do.
Petticoat Lane is one of the curiosities of London, and the day was well spent. It is a world by itself—a foreign nation preserving its religion and customs intact, injected into the very heart of London.