"Look here. I'm expecting a gentleman. Show him straight in."
These gentlemen were more dreadful to look at than the governor himself. He gave appointments to most terrific blacklegs—the unwashed rabble of the Red Cow, book-makers and their clerks, race-course touts,—inviting them to the shop in order to establish his credit, and prove to these seedy wretches that he was veritably the Marsden of Thompson & Marsden's.
For such interviews he used to turn his wife out of the room. At a word she meekly left the American desk and walked out.
"That you, Rooney? Come into my office. Here I am, you see. Sit down."
The Red Cow gentlemen were overcome by the grandeur of Mr. Marsden in his own office; the size and magnificence of the establishment filled them with awe and envy; it surpassed belief.
"Blow me, but it's true," they said afterwards. "Every word what he told us is the Gospel truth. He's the boss of the whole show. I witnessed it with my own eyes."
Yet if his visitors had possessed real business acumen, the shop would have impressed them with anything but confidence.
To a trade expert one glance would have sufficed. The forlorn aspect of the ruined shop told the gloomy facts with unmistakable clearness. So few assistants, so pitiably few customers, such a beggarly array of goods! Those shelves have all been dressed with dummies; those rolls of rich silk are composed of a wooden block, some paper, and half a yard of soiled material; within those huge presses you will find only darkness. Emptiness, desolation, death!
And what could not be seen could readily be guessed. Behind the glass only two people—a man laboriously muddling with unfilled ledgers, a girl at a type-writing machine—only one type-writer, a sadly feeble clicking in the midst of vast unoccupied space; not a sound in the covered yard; no horses, no carts; no purchased goods to be handled in the immense packing rooms; no stock, no cash, no credit, no nothing!
When a customer appeared, the shop seemed to stir uneasily in the sleep that was so like death; a faint vibration disturbed the heavy atmosphere; shop-walkers flitted to and fro; assistants yawned and stretched themselves. What is it? Yes, it is another customer.