Thus even in a shop assistant does the warmth of manhood assert
itself, and drive him against all the conditions of his calling,
against the counsels of prudence and the restrictions of his
means, to seek the wholesome delights of exertion and danger and
pain. And our first examination of the draper reveals beneath his
draperies--the man! To which initial fact (among others) we shall
come again in the end.
II
But enough of these revelations. The central figure of our story
is now going along behind the counter, a draper indeed, with your
purchases in his arms, to the warehouse, where the various
articles you have selected will presently be packed by the senior
porter and sent to you. Returning thence to his particular place,
he lays hands on a folded piece of gingham, and gripping the
corners of the folds in his hands, begins to straighten them
punctiliously. Near him is an apprentice, apprenticed to the same
high calling of draper's assistant, a ruddy, red-haired lad in a
very short tailless black coat and a very high collar, who is
deliberately unfolding and refolding some patterns of cretonne.
By twenty-one he too may hope to be a full-blown assistant, even
as Mr. Hoopdriver. Prints depend from the brass rails above them,
behind are fixtures full of white packages containing, as
inscriptions testify, Lino, Hd Bk, and Mull. You might imagine to
see them that the two were both intent upon nothing but
smoothness of textile and rectitude of fold.
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