were two other chief matters to which it was now necessary that
the Firm should attend; the first and primary being the stock of
advertisements which should be issued; and the other, or secondary,
being the stock of goods which should be obtained to answer the
expectations raised by those advertisements.

"But, George, we must have something to sell," said Mr. Brown, almost
in despair. He did not then understand, and never since has learned
the secrets of that commercial science which his younger partner was
at so much pains to teach. There are things which no elderly man can
learn; and there are lessons which are full of light for the new
recruit, but dark as death to the old veteran.

"It will be so doubtless with me also," said Robinson, soliloquizing
on the subject in his melancholy mood. "The day will come when I too
must be pushed from my stool by the workings of younger genius, and
shall sink, as poor Mr. Brown is now sinking, into the foggy depths
of fogeydom. But a man who is a man--" and then that melancholy mood
left him, "can surely make his fortune before that day comes. When
a merchant is known to be worth half a million, his fogeydom is
respected."

That necessity of having something to sell almost overcame Mr. Brown
in those days. "What's the good of putting down 5,000 Kolinski
and Minx Boas in the bill, if we don't possess one in the shop?"
he asked; "we must have some if they're asked for." He could not
understand that for a first start effect is everything. If customers
should want Kolinski Boas, Kolinski Boas would of course be
forthcoming,--to any number required; either Kolinski Boas, or quasi
Kolinski, which in trade is admitted to be the same thing. When a man
advertises that he has 40,000 new paletots, he does not mean that he
has got that number packed up in a box. If required to do so, he will
supply them to that extent,--or to any further extent. A long row
of figures in trade is but an elegant use of the superlative. If a
tradesman can induce a lady to buy a diagonal Osnabruck cashmere
shawl by telling her that he has 1,200 of them, who is injured? And
if the shawl is not exactly a real diagonal Osnabruck cashmere, what
harm is done as long as the lady gets the value for her money? And if
she don't get the value for her money, whose fault is that? Isn't it
a fair stand-up fight? And when she tries to buy for 4_l._, a shawl
which she thinks is worth about 8_l._, isn't she dealing on the sa