“One of the commonest tricks of all is that of putting in the window, say, a handsome mantle, worth eight or ten guineas, and labelled, say, £3 15s., and keeping inside for sale others made up in precisely the same style, but of utterly worthless material. If they decline to sell you the actual thing out of the window, be sure that the whole affair is a swindle. See, too, that in taking it from the window they do not drop it behind the counter and substitute one of the others—an ingenious little bit of juggling not very difficult of performance. “Another very taking device is the attaching to each article a price label in black ink, elaborately altered in red to one twenty or five and twenty per cent. less. This has a very ingenuous air. But when the price has been—as it commonly has—raised thirty or forty per cent. before the first black ink marking, the economy is not large. “Of course, if you do buy anything out of one of these shops, you will take it with you. If you have it sent, be particularly careful not to pay for it until it arrives, and not then till you have thoroughly examined it. “When a shop of this kind sends you ‘patterns,’ you will usually find a request attached not to cut them. Always carefully disregard this, keeping a small piece for comparison. “There are, however, some houses where, if you at all understand your business, real bargains are at times to be had.” The business woman is not often to be seen at auctions either, and if ever she does go, she makes sure beforehand that the sale is to be conducted on strictly honourable principles, and presided over by an auctioneer who is above suspicion. She is well aware that there are many unscrupulous individuals who, under cover of an auctioneer’s licence, lend themselves to transactions the reverse of honest. For example, in company with a band of “followers,” as they are called—back-street brokers and “general dealers” of shady character—auctioneers of this sort take a dwelling-house, and cram it with worthless furniture. Then, after a month or two, the whole is seized under a fictitious “bill of sale,” to give the affair an appearance of genuineness, and the trashy goods are disposed of by auction to the unsuspicious public, the rogues dividing the spoil. Another plan is to get possession of a shop in a frequented thoroughfare, and, day after day, beguile innocent folk to enter the premises, and then wheedle and bully them into bidding for and buying a lot of rubbish at four or five times more than its actual worth. It is quite a mistake to suppose that goods disposed of “under the hammer,” as it is termed, must necessarily sell for less than their real worth.