called it, that evening. Even now, when Cleora has been wedded some years to that same officious relation, as I may call him, I can hardly be persuaded that such a trifle could have been the motive to her inconstancy; for could she suppose that I would sacrifice my dearest hopes in her to the paltry sum of two shillings, when I was going to treat her to the play, and her mother too (an expense of more than four times that amount), if the young man had not interfered to pay for the latter, as I mentioned? But the caprices of the sex are past finding out; and I begin to think my mother was in the right; for doubtless women know women better than we can pretend to know them." Juke would have made a good tradesman under the rules laid down by De Foe: "A tradesman behind his counter must have no flesh and blood about him, no passions, no resentment; he must never be angry, no, not so much as seem to be so, if a customer tumbles him five hundred pounds' worth of goods, and scarce bids money for anything; nay, though they really come to his shop with no intent to buy, as many do, only to see what is to be sold, and though he knows they cannot be better pleased than they are at some other shop where they intend to buy, 't is all one; the tradesman must take it; he must place it to the account of his calling, that 't is his business to be ill-used and resent nothing. I could give you many examples, how and in what manner a shopkeeper is to behave himself in the way of business; what impertinences, what taunts, flouts, and ridiculous things he must bear in his trade; and must not show the least return, or the least signal of disgust; he must have no passions, no fire in his temper; he must be all soft and smooth; nay, if his real temper be naturally fiery and hot, he must show none of it in his shop; he must be a perfect, complete hypocrite, if he would be a complete tradesman. It is true, natural tempers are not to be always counterfeited: the man cannot easily be a lamb in his shop and a lion in himself; but, let it be easy or hard, it must be done, and is done. There are men who have by custom and usage brought themselves to it, that nothing could be meeker and milder than they when behind the counter, and yet nothing be more furious and raging in every other part of life; nay, the provocations they have met with in their shops have so irritated their rage, that they would go up-stairs from their shop, and fall into frenzies, and a kind of madness, and beat their heads against the wall, and perhaps mischief themselves, if not prevented, till the violence of it had gotten vent; and the passions abate and cool. I heard once of a shopkeeper that behaved himself thus to such an extreme that, when he was provoked by the impertinence of the customers beyond what his temper could bear, he would go up-stairs and beat his wife, kick his children about like dogs, and be as furious for two or three minutes as