Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 7, 2025
In short, London, being London, it seemed perfectly feasible to pass his life in a grocer's shop without the fact becoming known to any one from whom he wished to conceal it. The rent of the shop and house was eighty-five pounds an increase upon that paid by Boxon. "Plant" was estimated at a hundred and twenty-five; the stock at one hundred and fifty, and the goodwill at a round hundred.
I'd worked from eight in the morning to something past midnight of course I don't think nothing of that, 'cause it's reg'lar in the trade. But well, in come a customer, sir, a woman as didn't rightly know what she wanted; and she went out without buying, and Mr. Boxon he see it, and he come up to me and calls me the foulest name he could turn his tongue to.
He slackened his pace, reflecting. Why, Boxon was the name of the betting and drinking grocer, with whom Allchin used to be. He stopped, and saw a group of three or four women staring at the closed shop. Didn't Mrs. Hopper say that Boxon had been nearly killed in a carriage accident? Doubtless he was dead.
And so well, sir, there was unpleasantness, as they say " He hesitated, Warburton eyeing him with a twinkle of subdued amusement. "A quarrel, in fact, eh?" "It did about come to that, sir!" "You lost your temper, of course." "That's about the truth, sir." "And Boxon turned you out?" Allchin looked hurt. "Well, sir, I've no doubt he'd have liked to, but I was a bit beforehand with him.
Whilst this was being painted up, Allchin stood on the opposite side of the way, watching delightedly. "When I think as the name used to be Boxon," he exclaimed to his employer, "why, I can't believe as any money was ever made here. Boxon! Why, it was enough to drive customers away! If you ever heard a worse name, sir, for a shopkeeper, I should be glad to be told of it. But Jollyman!
But the perception was akin to fear; he started and looked nervously about, as if suddenly aware of some peril. One afternoon he was on his way home from a westward trudge, plodding along the remoter part of Fulham Road, when words spoken by a woman whom he passed caught his ears. "See 'ere! The shutters is up. Boxon must be dead." Boxon? How did he come to know that name?
Why, it'll bring people from Putney, from Battersea, from who knows how far. Jollyman's Teas, Jollyman's sugar can't you hear 'em saying it, already? It's a fortune in itself, that name. Why, sir, if a grocer called Boxon came at this moment, and offered to take me into partnership on half profits, I wouldn't listen to him there!"
It's fallen off a great deal lately, what else could you expect? since Boxon got into his bad ways. But anybody as had a little money might do well there. Allchin was saying he wished he had a few 'undreds." "A few hundred would be enough?" interrupted the listener, without noticing the look of peculiar eagerness on Mrs. Hopper's face.
"Allchin thinks the goodwill can be had for about a 'undred, sir; and the rent, it's only eighty pounds " "Shop and house?" "Yes, sir; so Allchin says. It isn't much of a 'ouse, of course." "What profits could be made, do you suppose, by an energetic man?" "When Boxon began, sir," replied Mrs. Hopper, with growing animation, "he used to make so Allchin says a good five or six 'undred a year.
Allchin'll never keep a place. Not that I can blame him, sir, for givin' it to that Boxon, 'cause every one says he's a brute." "Well, just let me know if they begin to be in want. But of course Allchin can always get work as a porter. He must learn to keep his fists down, if he doesn't want to be perpetually out of employment." "That's what I tell him, sir.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking