These remarks apply more or less to a jewellery, watch
and clock shop next door, kept for many years by Mr.
L.N. Hobday. Here again there is a look
of quality rather than mere quantity. There is
no ticketed crowded display of wares, but the look
of the shop inspires a feeling of confidence and an
assurance that the quality of what you purchase may
be relied upon. I am not in the secrets of the
proprietor of this establishment, and have no interest
in it beyond being an occasional small customer, yet
I should not wonder if he does not do a nice, steady,
quiet trade among those who have found out the advantages
of dealing with a trader who personally understands
his business, and will give them good value for their
money.
There are, as I have hinted, other shops that prefer
adhering to well-established lines of business, rather
than up-to-dating their trade past all recognition.
There are a few drapers still left, who, like Turner,
Son, and Nephew, do not go in for a general all round-my-hat
sort of business, but who restrict themselves within
certain limited lines and on them keep up a well-established
connection. There are, however, others who prefer
a more pushing, store-competing, Whiteley-emulating
style of trade. They follow their bent and probably
make it pay. It is, of course, well that we should
have traders of all kinds to minister to the requirements
of a large and varied community. For myself,
however, I am glad that there are still some shopkeeper
specialists left who limit themselves to dealing in
such things as they understand, and know what they
buy, and sell that they know.
XV.
SOME PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS.
Though reminiscences and recollections are rather
overdone in these days, I may, perhaps, be permitted
a few personal reflections in bringing my chapters
to a close. And I shall not write a long, tedious
tale, and why? Because, like the needy knife-grinder,
I have no story to tell. Happy, we are told,
is the country that has no history, and, if this is
so, happy should be the man who is not burdened with
too many reminiscences.
Still, there are just a few memories that I should
like to jot down, which may, or may not, be of interest
to my readers. Authors, I fancy, often write
as much to gratify themselves as to please other people.
I cannot boast that I have been personally intimate
with many distinguished people. I have never
been to Court, and, consequently, I am, according
to Shakspeare’s clown, emphatically “damned.”
I have known some few titled people, and have even
sat at meat with a Duke in his palatial home, and
did not fail to notice that his Grace was very easy
and human in his tastes and manners, and was not above
taking a glass of port wine with his cheese.
I have just occasionally shaken hands with a lord
of high degree, and even with a belted earl, but I
am not of the Upper Ten, and am quite outside the
gilded gate that encloses the noble of the land.
I have seen few people that were particularly worth
seeing, that is, for book-writing purposes, but I
will take leave to reconnoitre in my memory those
I have beheld in Birmingham during the course of my
uneventful career.
