Suppose, however, that, after all kinds of fond and dreamy calculations, the shop has been taken and opened. I think there can hardly, for some time, be a more interesting sight to a benevolent on-looker, than the young and anxious trader. The shop almost throws itself out at the windows to attract the observation of the passer by. The youth himself stands prompt and alert behind his counter, never idling for a moment, nor permitting his shopboy to idle, but both busy, cutting, and brushing, and bustling about, whether there be any thing to do or not. If but an old lady be seen looking up at the window, or glancing in through the avenue of cheap prints that forms the doorway, what an angler-like eagerness in the mind of the trader that she would but _walk in_!—nothing more required—were she once within the shop, no fear but she is well done for. And when any body does go in to buy any thing, what a readiness to fly upon the article wanted—with what serviceable rapidity of finger is the parcel unbound—how polite and _impressé_ the manner in which the object is presented and laid out for inspection—what intense gratitude for the money wherewith it is paid! With what a solicitous air is a card finally put into your hand as a memorandum of the place!—a proceeding only the more eloquent when not accompanied by an actual request for your farther custom. In a large city, advertising is necessarily resorted to as one of the modes, if not almost the only mode, of forming a business. Here it is obvious that a mere modest statement of the case will not do. Something must be said, to make the setting up of the new shop appear in the character of an _event_. The public attention must be arrested to the circumstance, as if it were a matter of public concernment. It must appear as if the interest of the community, and the interest of the shopman, were identified. No good bargains, no certainty of good articles, no safety of any kind, any where else. Such is the strain of his advertisements, which, though they make the judicious grieve, make a vast number of other people, and even some of the judicious, buy. The secret is this: A warm and highly coloured style is necessary with a new shopkeeper, to meet and counteract the indifference of the public towards his concerns. If he put forth a cool schedule of his goods and chattels, it does nothing for him, because it does not single him out from the great herd. But if he uses a striking and emphatic phraseology, and even mixes a little extravagance in the composition, it is apt to fix attention to him and his shop; and the people, being so warmly solicited, go to try. Again (and here, perhaps, lies the better part of the thing), the frequency and fervour of his advertisements at least convey the impression that he is anxious for business, and ready and willing to execute it; and as people like to deal with such persons, he is apt to be resorted to on that account, if upon no other.