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From these figures a firm of Manchester actuaries has drawn the
startling conclusion that Bond Street is more used by women than by
men. It may be so. But a more interesting question is, how do all
these duplicates manage to carry on, considering the very reasonable
prices they charge? At one point there are three jewellers in a row,
with another one opposite. Not far off there are three cigarette-shops
together, madly defying each other with gold-tips and silver-tips,
cork-tips and velvet-tips, rose-tips and lily-tips. There is only one
book-shop, of course, but there are about nine picture-places. How do
they all exist? It is mysterious.

Especially when you consider how much trouble they take to avoid
attracting attention. There are still one or two window-dressers
who lower the whole tone of the street by adhering to the
gaudy-overcrowded style; but the majority, in a violent reaction
from that, seem to have rushed to the wildest extremes of the
simple-unobtrusive. They are delightful, I think, those reverent
little windows with the chaste curtains and floors of polished walnut,
in the middle of which reposes delicately a single toque, a single
chocolate or a single pearl. Some of the picture-places are among
the most modest. There is one window which suggests nothing but the
obscure branch of a highly-decayed bank in the dimmest cathedral town.
On the dingy screen which entirely fills the window is written simply
in letters which time has almost erased, "---- ---- PICTURES." Nothing
could be less enticing. Yet inside, I daresay, fortunes are made
daily. I noticed no trace of this method at the Advertisers'
Exhibition; they might give it a trial.

Now no doubt you fondly think that Bond Street is wholly devoted to
luxuries; perhaps you have abandoned your dream of actually buying
something in Bond Street? You are wrong. To begin with, there are
about ten places where you can buy food, and, though there is no pub.
now, there is a cafe (with a licence). There are two grocers and a
poulterer. There is even a fish-shop--you didn't know that, did you? I
am bound to say it seemed to have only the very largest fish, but they
were obviously fish.

Anyone can go shopping in Bond Street. I knew a clergyman once who
went in and asked for a back-stud. He was afterwards unfrocked for
riotous living, but the stud was produced. You can buy a cauliflower
in Bond Street--if you know the ropes. There is a shop which m