From the fact that the man in debt had to hide his head beneath his gown in order to get past the shops safely or else to pursue the longer but less risky method of slinking down back streets so as to avoid meeting creditors, it is certain that the shopkeeper who had lost his patience, and was intent on nothing but getting his money back, was looked upon as a fearsome and dreaded creature. His war tactics, aided by free access to his customer’s rooms, consisted of serving writs freely--putting the dun upon his victims. One way to evade the serving was to sport the oak and remain in voluntary confinement. Such a method was not, however, popular as there was no alternative but work to relieve the tedium of such imprisonment. Another way was described in the diary of a modern Oxford man in _The Loiterer_. This “modern” gentleman was slacking away the boring hour after breakfast in the perusal of “Bartlett’s Farriery” when there came a tap at his door, and in strode a dun with an insolent smirk. The Undergraduate politely explained that he was shortly expecting a very healthy windfall from home, upon receipt of which he would immediately pay what was owing. The dun received this news with cold disbelief and refused to be put off. Upon being offered brandy he became “sulky,” and refused with a touch of irritation. Then the Undergraduate, enraged at such insolence, rose in his wrath and kicked the fellow down stairs to stop him from becoming more impertinent. The dun must have possessed a curious character. Knowing well the propensities of Undergraduates, he did not, like a wise man, imbibe the liquid refreshment so generously offered to him, and depart with the knowledge that payment, for that day at least, was impossible. Instead, he refused brandy and waited to be kicked out--without, apparently, having served his writ. The question of advertising was in those days only in its infancy. The tradesman patronised Jackson’s _Oxford Journal_ to a certain extent. In it are to be found curiously worded announcements of medicines, books, cock-fights, curacies to be drunk or eaten for, dancing masters who were exclusive to the peerage, election paragraphs, and public notices; while advertisements for wives and husbands, or loans of money, were not infrequent. One of the most up-to-date and cunning methods then practised was for two rival tradesmen to get up a mock ink-slinging match in the columns of some periodical, and week after week furiously to denounce each other as cheats, tricksters, and knaves, the one saying that the other sold inferior goods, and _vice versâ_.