“There is a run of business on Saturday night, and the assistants behind the counter, although they, too, love Sunday with the repose it brings, almost dread it as being preceded by such a rush of work. And these people who come to redeem are not so easy to manage as the poor wretches who pledge, the latter being mild and patient, full of anguish though they are; the former noisy, exacting, and sometimes insolent. The relationship is changed, in fact. One set come to demand something, almost an act of charity--for that is the nature of the request, although the pledge is worth more than the loan granted. The other set come to make what is almost a gift; for the pledge they withdraw is not always worth the price that has been estimated, and if they did not withdraw it the commissionaire would perhaps lose something on it, instead of gaining. You see the difference. And then, again, it is usually men who pledge and women who redeem. In pledging, a signature is required; a certificate alone suffices for the redemption. I leave you to imagine the behaviour of those gossips, proud of “unhooking” from the accursed “nail” the dress or the jacket which has hung there six months, and which is now as indispensable for going to the dance or the promenade as it was useless six months since, when it was a question of procuring a dinner or paying for a bed.” [Illustration: THE JEWELLERY STORES, RUE DES BLANCS MANTEAUX.] The Parisian pawnbroker, being simply a Government official, differs necessarily from the pawnbroker of London. The latter is the most independent and insolent of all shopkeepers. He makes very little distinction between those who come to pledge and those who come to redeem. If his Saturday-night customers who come to take their things out of pawn were to give themselves such airs as the Parisian pledge-redeemers already described, he would insult them to their face, and keep them waiting till they had learnt better manners. He feels indebted to no one. He does not seek regular customers, for he knows that the stream of the impecunious will never cease to flow into his shop, that if one does not come another will, and that the people who come to redeem are seriously in want of their property, and must pay him the amount of the loan and interest no matter whether he is bearish or polite.