His wife attacked him again the next day. She was bent upon moving, and
it is only fair to her to say that she did really wish to go for
Catharine's sake. She loved the child in her own way, but she also
wanted to go for many other reasons.
"Well, my dear, what have you to say to my little scheme?"
"How about my dinner and tea?"
"Come home to the Terrace. How far is it?"
"Ten minutes' walk."
"An hour every day, in all weathers; and then there's the expense."
"As to the expense, I am certain we should save in the long run, because
you would not be expected to be continually asking people to meals."
"I am afraid that the business might suffer."
"Nonsense! In what way, my dear? Your attention will be more fixed upon
it than it can be with the parlour always behind you."
There was something in that, and Mr. Furze was perplexed. He was not
sufficiently well educated to know that something, and a great deal, too,
can be said for anything, and he had not arrived at that callousness to
argument which is the last result of culture.
"Yes, but I was thinking that perhaps if we leave off chapel and go to
church some of our customers may not like it."
"Now, my good man, Furze, why you know you have as many customers who go
to church as to chapel."
"Ah! but those who go to chapel may drop off."
"Why should they? We have plenty of customers who go to church. They
don't leave us because we are Dissenters, and, as there are five times as
many church people as Dissenters, your connection will be extended."
Mrs. Furze was unanswerable, but her poor husband, after all, was right.
The change, when it took place, did not bring more people to the shop,
and some left who were in the habit of coming. His dumb, dull
presentiment was a prophecy, and his wife's logic was nothing but words.
"Then there are all the rooms here; what shall we do with them?"
"I have told you; you want more space. Besides, you do not make half
enough show. You ought to go with the times. Why, at Cross's at
Cambridge their upstairs windows are hung full of spades and hoes and
such things, and you can see it is business up to the garret. I should
turn the parlour into a counting-house. It isn't the proper thing for
you to be standing always at that pokey little desk at the end of the
counter with a pen behind your ear. Turn the parlour, I say, into a
counting-house, and come out when Tom finds it necessary to call you.
That makes a much better impression. The rooms above the drawing-room
might be used for lighter goods, so as not to weight the floors too
much."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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