Festus Clasby would have looked the part in any notorious position in life; his shoulders would have carried with dignity the golden chain of office of the mayoralty of a considerable city; he would have looked a perfect chairman of a jury at a Coroner’s inquest; as the Head of a pious Guild in a church he might almost be confused with the figures of the stained glass windows; marching at the head of a brass band he would symbolise the conquering hero; as an undertaker he would have reconciled one to death.  There was no technical trust which men would not have reposed in him, so perfectly was he wrought as a human casket.  As it was, Festus Clasby filled the most fatal of all occupations to dignity without losing his tremendous illusion of respectability.  The hands which cut the bacon and the tobacco, turned the taps over pint measures, scooped bran and flour into scales, took herrings out of their barrels, rolled up sugarsticks in shreds of paper for children, were hands whose movements the eyes of no saucy customer dared follow with a gleam of suspicion.  Not once in a lifetime was that casket tarnished; the nearest he ever went to it was when he bought up—­very cheaply, as was his custom—­a broken man’s insurance policy a day after the law made such a practice illegal.  There was no haggling at Festus Clasby’s counter.  There was only conversation, agreeable conversation about things which Festus Clasby did not sell, such as the weather, the diseases of animals, the results of races, and the scandals of the Royal Families of Europe.  These conversations were not hurried or yet protracted.  They came to a happy ending at much the same moment as Festus Clasby made the knot on the twine of your parcel.  But to stand in the devotional lights in front of his counter, wedged in between divisions and subdivisions of his boxes and barrels, and to scent the good scents which exhaled from his shelves, and to get served by Festus Clasby in person, was to feel that you had been indeed served.

The small farmers and herds and the hardy little dark mountainy men had this reverential feeling about the good man and his shop.  They approached the establishment as holy pilgrims might approach a shrine.  They stood at his counter with the air of devotees.  Festus Clasby waited on them with patience and benignity.  He might be some warm-blooded god handing gifts out over the counter.  When he brought forth his great account book and entered up their purchases with a carpenter’s pencil—­having first moistened the tip of it with his flexible lips—­they had strongly, deep down in their souls, the conviction that they were then and for all time debtors to Festus Clasby.  Which, indeed and in truth, they were.  From year’s end to year’s end their accounts remained in that book; in the course of their lives various figures rose and faded after their names, recording the ups and downs of their financial histories.  It was only when Festus Clasby had supplied the materials