corner was illegible! " " So it might Sir, and
I don't complain."— "Besides," My Uncle
would proceed, " it's too long a table-cloth, for
any table that you have in your house, you
know? " " Certainly it is Sir, but I used to keep
a public-house. I kept the Fox and Grapes
at Bow, for several years, and that table-cloth
was used in the business." Then, My Uncle,
reassured by his ears, as well as by his eyes,
would roll it up, and say that he was glad to
lend the matron the money that she wanted
"on it; " and the affair would be completed
to the satisfaction of all parties.

The reader of the arbitrary gender would
observe, perhaps, as the matron and the
servant left the shop, another matron enter by
the same genteel door, accompanied, to his
thinking (though, of course, he is anything
but suspicious) by a doubtful-looking little
Niece, of thirteen years or so—doubtful as a
Niece, because of her very strong resemblance to
her Aunt. A plump little, comfortable, pippin-
cheeked Aunt, mighty soft-spoken, and
wrapped-up to her chubby chin in reputable
furs. He would observe them come in, with
a mincing pretence of inquiring on what terms
the purchase of a great coat near the door
could be effected—so, gradually, and without
abatement of gentility, approach the counter,
and slide into a shopman's hand (the
immediate link of communication between Aunt
and Shopman, being Niece) two duplicates for
silver spoons. To the inquiry, " Do you wish
to take 'em out? " he would observe Aunt's
neck bend, swan-like, in the affirmative, while
Niece as the more artless spirit, said openly,
"Please! " The strangeness of Aunt in such a
place; her timid surprise, repressed by a
continual effort; the expressive appeal of her
gentility to the chivalrous feelings of the shopman;
the mysterious gathering of her furs about her
chin; the delicate way in which, when Niece
has the spoons all safe, Aunt bends forward,
to say in a fluttered whisper, as she draws her
glove upon her short plump hand, " that there
is a fish-slice which she will probably
require to redeem on Monday, and will the
forenoon be a good time for coming
unobserved ? " would not be lost upon him. But
it is a thousand to one that he would be
amused by this elaboration, because
perfectly convinced that Aunt and Niece are
quite as intimate with My Uncle as Mrs.
Flathers herself is—just then going out, with
her six bundles.

In Mrs. Flathers and the general customers,
he would find no pretence of shyness, either
with My Uncle or with one another. In the
intervals of not ungracious expostulations with
"Charles" or "William," to "see if that
shawl's down yet! " they would gossip about
their husbands, and their families, and Mrs.
Walker's having come better through it than
they had thought she would, after Walker's
treatment of her—as they might at any other
place of assemblage. Their children, too:
whether so young as to be taking their regular
meals at My Uncle's, or to be staring at the
gas and sucking their fists: or so old as to be
stood down in corners to poke their fingers
into one another's eyes : would be found quite
at home. Of little old men and women of an
older growth yet, very knowing, and very
observant of all the business done, there
would be no want. Men would be found
(especially married men) a little out of place—
rather awkward and shy—something hustled
by the women—and sensible of its being better
to leave such ordinary domestic affairs as
pawnbroking to them. Girls from ten to fifteen
would be seen highly to cherish this privilege,
and to fly at boys of corresponding years
like tigresses.

The transactions to be contemplated at My
Uncle's on such an occasion would be of a
singular and various nature. This woman
would be "taking out" a sheet and a child's
petticoat, pawned in the morning of that very
day—most likely to provide her husband's
dinner. That man would be redeeming a saw,
which has been in my Uncle's keeping,
hundreds of times—which is constantly passing
in and out of his possession. And this, not
because the man is a drunkard or an idler,
but because he is a poor jobbing carpenter,
without a penny of monied capital: who,
when he has a small job in hand, and has
done the sawing part of it and wants the nails
and glue to finish it, pawns the saw to
provide them, until he is paid and can redeem it.
Endless cases of this kind the reader would
encounter. But he would see no pawning of
"The Society's Bibles," which My Uncle
refuses to receive, as possessions the poor do
not usually acquire on terms that involve
a right to dispose of them for money; and he
would see no drunkenness—for My Uncle
flatly refuses to deal with men or women in a
state of intoxication.

We would then survey My Uncle's stores of
pledges up-stairs, binned exactly like wine, and
kept with as much order. Giving him a lamp
in a lantern, as a necessary precaution against
fire, and carrying one myself, I would show
him floor above floor of these store-rooms;
"the well" communicating with each; and a
boy, with another lantern and sundry
duplicates, going about, searching for the bundles
to which the latter refer. He should see how
the seven shilling coats are all binned together
in order of date; how the ten shilling coats
are all binned together; the fifteen shilling
coats, the pound coats. So with the shawls, so
with the gowns, so with the petticoats, so with
the trousers, so with the shirts, so with the
waistcoats. And he should witness the
surprising facility with which My Uncle can
find in his great stock the least article that
he wants. As to miscellaneous pledges, he
should see plenty of them, although in a
poor neighbourhood, common wearing apparel
is the staple pawn. He should see some (but
not many) beds, plenty of spades and flat-irons,
alleys of clocks. He should roam among