‘Such a shop,’ says the customer, ’stands well, and there is a good stock of goods in it, but there is nobody to serve but a ’prentice-boy or two, and an idle journeyman:  one finds them always at play together, rather than looking out for customers; and when you come to buy, they look as if they did not care whether they showed you any thing or no.  One never sees a master in the shop, if we go twenty times, nor anything that bears the face of authority.  Then, it is a shop always exposed, it is perfectly haunted with thieves and shop-lifters; they see nobody but raw boys in it, that mind nothing, and the diligent devils never fail to haunt them, so that there are more outcries of ‘Stop thief!’ at their door, and more constables fetched to that shop, than to all the shops in the row.  There was a brave trade at that shop in Mr—­’s time:  he was a true shopkeeper; like the quack doctor, you never missed him from seven in the morning till twelve, and from two till nine at night, and he throve accordingly—­he left a good estate behind him.  But I don’t know what these people are; they say there are two partners of them, but there had as good be none, for they are never at home, nor in their shop:  one wears a long wig and a sword, I hear, and you see him often in the Mall and at court, but very seldom in his shop, or waiting on his customers; and the other, they say, lies a-bed till eleven o’clock every day, just comes into the shop and shows himself, then stalks about to the tavern to take a whet, then to Child’s coffee-house to hear the news, comes home to dinner at one, takes a long sleep in his chair after it, and about four o’clock comes into the shop for half an hour, or thereabouts, then to the tavern, where he stays till two in the morning, gets drunk, and is led home by the watch, and so lies till eleven again; and thus he walks round like the hand of a dial.  And what will it all come to?—­they’ll certainly break, that you may be sure of; they can’t hold it long.’

’This is the town’s way of talking, where they see an example of it in the manner as is described; nor are the inferences unjust, any more than the description is unlike, for such certainly is the end of such management, and no shop thus neglected ever made a tradesman rich.

On the contrary, customers love to see the master’s face in the shop, and to go to a shop where they are sure to find him at home.  When he does not sell, or cannot take the price offered, yet the customers are not disobliged, and if they do not deal now, they may another time:  if they do deal, the master generally gets a better price for his goods than a servant can, besides that he gives better content; and yet the customers always think they buy cheaper of the master too.