Part 6 (1/2)

One would say, on the face of it, that a shop opened in a locality where that kind of shop did not previously exist would have a better chance than a shop opened next door to another shop of the same kind--apart from any unpleasantness that such contiguity might produce. But the methods of business are inscrutable, and there seem to be countless ways, often in direct opposition to each other, of conducting it successfully. One would, at the first blush, have called this principle of scientific selection and segregation the soundest; and yet that of congregation seems to be just as sensible; so that while one man succeeds because he is the only tailor in the street, another man can be even more successful because he is in a street where every other establishment is a tailor's too. There are also the antagonistic principles of ostentation and self-effacement, each again apparently satisfactory: so that one hatter, for example, succeeds because he inhabits a palace of light, and another because you can hardly see through the grimy panes of his old-fas.h.i.+oned and obsolete windows. There are, furthermore, the antipodal theories of singularity and plurality: so that one draper makes as good a thing as he wants out of a single shop, and another rises to wealth by dint of opening twenty shops at once.

And then there are the business people who thrive by apparently doing no business. We all know of shops which no one was ever seen to enter; while at the opposite pole are the mandarins of trade who disdain to disclose their ident.i.ty to strangers--such as Altman and Tiffany, serenely secure in their anonymous stores.

But to select one's line...?

There was once a man who, without any special training, decided that he would start business in London; and he came to town to prospect and make up his mind, which was curiously blank and receptive. In his walking about he was struck by the number of old curiosity shops in the neighbourhood of the British Museum and South Kensington Museum, which led to the inference, hitherto unsuspected by him, but known to the dealers, that there is something exciting in the air of those places, so that the visitor, having seen many odd things, wishes to acquire some for himself. All his plans to establish himself in London failed, however, because he could not obtain a site for a monumental mason's yard opposite Westminster Abbey.

My own ambition, if ever I took to keeping a shop, would be merely to be in a congenial line of business. Some things are interesting to sell, and some most emphatically are not. Old books would appear to be an ideal commodity; but this is far from the case, because I should want not to sell them but to keep them. Pictures, too--how could one part with a good one? And, equally, how permit a customer to be so misguided as to pay money for a bad one? A fruit-shop would be a not unpleasant place to move about in, were it not that it is one of my profoundest beliefs that fruit ought not to be sold at all, but given away. The tobacconist's was once an urbane and agreeable career; but it is so no longer. To-day the tobacconist is a mere cog in a vast piece of machinery called a Trust; and the tobacco-shop is as remote from the old divan, where connoisseurs of the leaf met and tested and talked, as the modern chemist's, with its photograph frames and ”seasonable gifts,” is remote from the home of Rosamund's purple jar.

That ingenious and adventurous tobacconist, Mr. G.o.dall, revisiting the London which he found, or made, so like Baghdad, would have to discover a new kind of headquarters. Perhaps he would open an oyster-bar (it was in an oyster-bar near Leicester Square that the young man proffered the cream tarts); more likely an American bar. But if he really wanted to observe human nature at its most vulnerable and impulsive--that is, at night--he would take a coffee-stall. After ten o'clock, the coffee-stall men are the truest friends that poor humanity has. There is a coffee-stall within a few yards of my abode; and no matter at what hour I return, the keeper of it is always brisk and jovial, with the hottest beverages that ever were set to timid lips. His stall is surrounded by hungry and thirsty revellers, chiefly soldiers, not infrequently accompanied by the fair. Every one calls him by his Christian name, and every one talks and is jolly. And no matter at what hour in the night I wake, or from what disconcerting dream, I am always at once secure in my mind that the old recognisable world is still about me and I have not pa.s.sed over in my sleep, because the voices and laughter about the coffee-stall fill the air. ”Good,” I say, ”I am still here.” Now it would be a pleasant thing, and prove one's life not to have been lived in vain, to be able to minister in the small hours gaily to so many heroes, and incidentally to impart to wakeful and disquieted neighbours rea.s.surance of stability.

THIRD THOUGHTS

It is my destiny (said my friend) to buy in the dearest markets and to sell--if I succeed in selling at all--in the cheapest. Usually, indeed, having tired of a picture or decorative article, I have positively to give it away; almost to make its acceptance by another a personal favour to me. But the other day was marked by an exception to this rule so striking that I have been wondering if perhaps the luck has not changed and I am, after all, destined to be that most enviable thing, a successful dealer.

It happened thus. In drifting about the old curiosity shops of a cathedral city I came upon a portfolio of water-colour drawings, among which was one that to my eye would have been a possible Turner, even if an earlier owner had not shared that opinion or hope and set the magic name with all its initials (so often placed in the wrong order) beneath it.

”How much is this?” I asked scornfully.

”Well,” said the dealer, ”if it were a genuine Turner it would be worth anything. But let's say ten s.h.i.+llings. You can have it for that; but I don't mind if you don't, because I'm going to London next week and should take it with me to get an opinion.”

I pondered.

”Mind you, I don't guarantee it,” he added.

I gave him the ten s.h.i.+llings.

By what incredible means I found a purchaser for the drawing at fifty pounds there is no need to tell, for the point of this narrative resides not in bargaining with collectors, but in bargaining with my own soul.

The astonis.h.i.+ng fact remains that I achieved a profit of forty-nine pounds ten and was duly elated. I then began to think.

The dealer (so my thoughts ran) in that little street by the cathedral west door, he ought to partic.i.p.ate in this. He behaved very well to me and I ought to behave well to him. It would be only fair to give him half.

Thereupon I sat down and wrote a little note saying that the potential Turner drawing, which no doubt he recollected, had turned out to be authentic, and I had great pleasure in enclosing him half of the proceeds, as I considered that to be the only just and decent course.

Having no stamps and the hour being late I did not post this, and went to bed.

At about 3.30 a. m. I woke widely up and, according to custom, began to review my life's errors, which are in no danger of ever suffering from loneliness. From these I reached, by way of mitigation, my recent successful piece of chaffering, and put the letter to the dealer under both examination and cross-examination. Why (so my thoughts ran) give him half? Why be quixotic? This is no world for quixotry. It was my eye that detected the probability of the drawing, not his. He had indeed failed; did not know his own business. Why put a premium on inept.i.tude?

No, a present of, say, ten pounds at the most would more than adequately meet the case.

Sleep still refusing to oblige me, I took a book of short stories and read one. Then I closed my eyes again, and again began to think about the dealer. Why (so my thoughts ran) send him ten pounds? It will only give him a wrong idea of his customers, none other of whom would be so fair, so sporting, as I. He will expect similar letters every day and be disappointed, and then he will become embittered and go down the vale of tears a miserable creature. He looked a nice old man too; a pity, nay a crime, to injure such a nature. No, ten pounds is absurd. Five would be plenty. Ten would put him above himself.

While I was dressing the next morning I thought about the dealer again.

Why should I (so my thoughts ran), directly I had for the first time in my life brought off a financial _coup_, spoil it by giving a large part of the profit away? Was not that flying in the face of the G.o.ddess of Business, whoever she may be? Was it not asking her to disregard me--only a day or so after we had at last got on terms? There is no fury like a woman scorned; it would probably be the end of me. The Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts have won to success and affluence probably just because they don't do these foolish impulsive things. If I am to make any kind of figure in this new _role_ of fine-art speculator (so my thoughts continued) I must control my feelings. No, five pounds is absurd. A _douceur_ of one pound will meet the case. It will be nothing to me--or, at any rate, nothing serious--but a gift of quail and manna from a clear sky to the dealer, without, however, doing him any harm. A pound will be ample, accompanied by a brief note.