; his
customers are to be his idols: so far as he may worship idols by
allowance, he is to bow down to them and worship them;[17] at least, he
is not any way to displease them, or show any disgust or distaste at any
thing they say or do. The bottom of it all is, that he is intending to
get money by them; and it is not for him that gets money by them to
offer the least inconvenience to them by whom he gets it; but he is to
consider, that, as Solomon says, 'The borrower is servant to the
lender,' so the seller is servant to the buyer.

When a tradesman has thus conquered all his passions, and can stand
before the storm of impertinence, he is said to be fitted up for the
main article, namely, the inside of the counter.

On the other hand, we see that the contrary temper, nay, but the very
suggestion of it, hurries people on to ruin their trade, to disoblige
the customers, to quarrel with them, and drive them away. We see by the
lady above, after having seen the ways she had taken to put this man out
of temper--I say, we see it conquered her temper, and brought her to lay
out her money cheerfully, and be his customer ever after.

A sour, morose, dogmatic temper would have sent these ladies both away
with their money in their pockets; but the man's patience and temper
drove the lady back to lay out her money, and engaged her entirely.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] Paternoster Row has long been the chief seat of the bookselling and
publishing trade in London; and there are now some splendid shops of
mercers or haberdashers in St Paul's Churchyard, also in Ludgate hill
adjoining.

[16] [The necessity here insisted on seems a hard one, and scarcely
consistent with a just morality. Yet, if the tradesman takes a right
view of his situation, he will scarcely doubt the propriety of Defoe's
advice. He must consider, that, in his shop, he is, as it were, acting a
part. He performs a certain character in the drama of our social
arrangements, one which requires all the civility and forbearance above
insisted on. He is not called upon, in such circumstances, to feel,
speak, and act, as he would find himself in honour required to do in his
private or absolutely personal capacity--in his own house, for instance,
or in any public place where he mingled on a footing of equality with
his fellow-citizens. Accordingly, there is such a general sense of the
justifiableness of his conducting himself in this submissive spirit,
that no one would think o