§ It may be useful to trace out the course of purchases by retail, and to show the fine gradations of impediment which are insensibly interposed between the vendor and consumer, as obstacles to a full examination of the article by the latter. Of course neither an article of daily consumption ought to be taken as an example, nor yet one immediately wanted by a consumer, whose time is so valuable that it would be cheaper to go into the first shop he finds and purchase it at any price. § Let us suppose that a lady having some leisure goes out in search of a fan. She passes several shops in which they may or may not be kept for sale. She sees some fans in a shop window, but as they are _not open_ she passes on, intending to return to them if she cannot suit herself elsewhere. A few doors beyond there are some fans _open_, but none of them exactly suit her taste, and she does not like to give the owner of the shop the trouble of opening a number of fans, none of which may please her. In the next street she sees in the window of a shop some fans, which _are open_. One of these appears to suit her, but there is no price marked on it. She does not like to go into the shop and examine more minutely whether the subtle implement she requires has sufficient strength to withstand its ball-room trials, lest it may be too expensive for her purse. A short distance beyond another set of _opened_ fans present themselves to her notice in the window of another shop, each of them with its price distinctly marked upon it. One of these the hesitating lady prefers, _a little_, to the last she had approved, and she resolves to enter this shop and examine the fan. But perceiving before she enters, that there is no attendant in the shop, she thinks the mistress may be at dinner, or have gone up stairs to her baby, and she says to herself, “It is of no consequence; I will not disturb her now.” Still passing onward she finds a shop in the window of which is a pretty fan, although not quite so good as the last, and within there sits the shopkeeper—but the door is _shut_. Although the fan was not the most suitable the lady had seen, yet had that door been open, she would have entered, hoping that the fans exposed in the window were samples of classes kept in store within.