“From youth to age a reverend ’_prentice_ grew;” a man, at the time of his master’s failure, advanced to nearly middle life, but who, having never been any where else since he was ten or twelve years of age, than behind Finlay’s counter—Sundays and meal-hours alone excepted—was still looked upon by his master as “the boy of the shop,” and so styled accordingly. This worthy creature had, in the course of time, become as a mere piece of furniture in the shop; his soul had _fraternized_ (to use a modern French phrase) with his situation. The drawers and shottles, the combs, brushes, and bottles, had entered into and become part of his own existence; he took them all under the wide-spreading boughs of his affections; they were to him, as the infant to the mother, part of himself. He was on the best terms with every thing about the shop; the handles of all things were fitted to his hand; every thing came to him, to use a proverbial expression of Scotland, like the bowl of a pint-stoup. In fact, like a piece of wood placed in a petrifying spring, this man might be said to have been transfigured out of his original flesh and blood altogether, and changed into a creature participating in the existence and qualities of certain essences, perfumes, wigs, pomades, drawers, wig-blocks, glass cases, and counters forming the _materiel_ of Mr Finlay’s establishment. Such a being was, as may be supposed, a useful servant. He knew all the customers; he knew his master’s whole form of practice, all his habits, and every peculiarity of his temper. And then the fidelity of the creature; but that was chiefly shown in the latter evil days of the shop, and during the victimhood of his master. As misfortune came on, the friendship of master and man became more intensely familiar and intimate than it had ever been before. As the proudest man, met by a lion in the desert, makes no scruple to coalesce with his servant in resisting it, so was Finlay induced, by the devouring monster Poverty, to descend to the level, and make a companion, of his faithful “boy.” They would at last go to the same tavern together, take the same Sunday walks—were, in reality, boon companions. In all Finlay’s distresses, the “boy” partook; if any thing “occurred about a bill,” as Crabbe says, it was the “boy” who had the chief dolour of its accommodation; he would scour the North and South Bridges, with his hat off, borrowing small silver a _l’improviste_, as if to make up change to a customer, till he had the necessary sum amassed. The “boy” at length became very much demoralised: he grew vicious towards the world, to be the more splendidly virtuous to his master: one grand redeeming quality, after the manner of Moses’ serpent, had eaten up all the rest. It were needless to pursue the history of the shop through all its stages of declension. Through them all the “boy” survived, unshaken in his attachment. The shop might fade, grow dim, and die, but the “boy” never.