They say there are two partners of them, but there had as good be none, for they are never at home or in the shop. One wears a long peruke and a sword, I hear, and you see him often at the ball and at court, but very seldom in his shop, or waiting on his customers; and the other, they say, lies abed till eleven o’clock every day, just comes into the shop and shows himself, then stalks about to the tavern to take a whet, then to the coffee-house to hear the news, comes home to dinner at one, takes a long sleep in his chair after it, and about four o’clock comes into the shop for half an hour or thereabouts, then to the tavern, where he stays till two in the morning, gets drunk, and is led home by the watch, and so lies till eleven again; and thus he walks round like the hand of a dial. And what will it all come to? They’ll certainly break. They can’t hold long. The account of the shop kept by these two idle masters is equally characteristic. There is a good stock of goods in it, but there is nobody to serve but a prentice boy or two and an idle journeyman. One finds them all at play together rather than looking out for customers; and when you come to buy, they look as if they did not care whether they showed you anything or no. Then it is a shop always exposed; it is perfectly haunted with thieves and shoplifters. They are nobody but raw boys in it that mind nothing, so that there are more outcries of stop thief! at their door, and more constables fetched to that shop than to all the shops in the street.