The Egregious English

f shopkeeping ran neither to fair trade nor honest dealing; but gradually there was built up a system of commercial equity, the main principle of which was the protection of one shopkeeper against another and the security of shopkeepers generally. In course of time the English man of business arose. He had a silk hat and expansive manners. He lived in a suburband read the Times on his way to business in the morning. All day at his office he would cheat no man, and his word was as good as his bond. His office day was a day of quite ten hours, and during those ten hours he sweated like the proverbial nigger. At nights he retired to his suburb, and, with the wife and children whom he kept there, ate to repletion from the joint, washed it down with sherry and port supplied to him by merchants of the type of the late Mr. Ruskin's father; and, hey, presto! by eleven of the clock he was deep among the feathers. Twice on Sundays he went to church and held the plate. To Sunday's midday dinner he invited the vicar or a curate, and there was always beef and batter- pudding and improving talk, not to mention cabbage and an extra special "glass of wine, sir." Other recreations the English man of business had none, save and except perhaps an occasional Saturday-afternoon drive in a hired chaise with Mrs. Man-of-Business and the children, and a still more occasional visitto the theatre. In the long run, by the practice of these virtues he amassed wealth. He put his money into...