Brown, Jones, and
Robinson!

Of Mr. Brown, the senior member of our firm, it is expedient that
some short memoir should be given. At the time at which we signed
our articles in 185--, Mr. Brown had just retired from the butter
business. It does not appear that in his early youth he ever had the
advantage of an apprenticeship, and he seems to have been employed
in various branches of trade in the position, if one may say so,
of an out-door messenger. In this capacity he entered the service
of Mr. McCockerell, a retail butter dealer in Smithfield. When Mr.
McCockerell died our Mr. Brown married his widow, and thus found
himself elevated at once to the full-blown dignity of a tradesman. He
and his wife lived together for thirty years, and it is believed that
in the temper of his lady he found some alloy to the prosperity which
he had achieved. The widow McCockerell, in bestowing her person upon
Mr. Brown, had not intended to endow him also with entire dominion
over her shop and chattels. She loved to be supreme over her butter
tubs, and she loved also to be supreme over her till. Brown's views
on the rights of women were more in accordance with the law of the
land as laid down in the statutes. He opined that a _femme couverte_
could own no property, not even a butter tub;--and hence quarrels
arose.

After thirty years of contests such as these Mr. Brown found himself
victorious, made so not by the power of arguments, nor by that of
his own right arm, but by the demise of Mrs. Brown. That amiable
lady died, leaving two daughters to lament their loss, and a series
of family quarrels, by which she did whatever lay in her power to
embarrass her husband, but by which she could not prevent him from
becoming absolute owner of the butter business, and of the stock in
trade.

The two young ladies had not been brought up to the ways of the
counter; and as Mr. Brown was not himself especially expert at that
particular business in which his money was embarked, he prudently
thought it expedient to dispose of the shop and goodwill. This he
did to advantage; and thus at the age of fifty-five he found himself
again on the world with 4,000_l_. in his pocket.

At this period one of his daughters was no longer under his own
charge. Sarah Jane, the eldest of the two, was already Mrs. Jones.
She had been captivated by the black hair and silk waistcoat of Mr.
Jones, and had gone off with him in opposition to the wishes of both
parents. T