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Its members had ransacked the toy-shops of the fair, and every man was carrying some plaything and making the most of it, and extolling its greater virtues than the playthings of his fellows. Taranne carried a pea-shooter, and peppered his companion's legs persistently, grinning with delight if any of his victims showed irritation. Oriol had got a large trumpet, and was blowing it lustily.
It was one of those queer little shops so constantly seen in the side streets of London, which must be called toy-shops only because toys upon the whole predominate; for the remainder of goods seem to consist of almost everything else in the world tobacco, exercise-books, sweet-stuff, novelettes, halfpenny paper clips, halfpenny pencil sharpeners, bootlaces, and cheap fireworks.
Everything, in fact, was covered and blocked up with snow, and Londoners felt as if they had muffled drums in their ears. It was morning. The sky was clear, the air still, and the smoke of chimneys perpendicular. Poulterers' shops were in their holiday attire; toy-shops were in the ascendant, and all other shops were gayer than usual.
The shops in London begin to show some tokens of approaching Christmas; especially the toy-shops, and the confectioners', the latter ornamenting their windows with a profusion of bonbons and all manner of pygmy figures in sugar; the former exhibiting Christmas-trees, hung with rich and gaudy fruit.
Of later years these booths have degenerated into mere toy-shops, where the little loiterers chiefly interested in such wares are tempted to linger, enchanted by the rich display of hobby-horses, babies, and Dutch toys, arranged in artful and gay confusion; yet half-scared by the cross looks of the withered pantaloon, or spectacled old lady, by whom these tempting stores are watched and superintended.
Not having shillings to give the sexton, we were forced to give him half a crown. The Church of St. John is outside of the city walls. Entering the East gate, we walked awhile under the Rows, bought our tickets for Eaton Hall and its gardens, and likewise some playthings for the children; for this old city of Chester seems to me to possess an unusual number of toy-shops.
Oh, her lamps of a night; her rich goldsmiths, print-shops, toy-shops, mercers, hardwaremen, pastrycooks; St. Paul's Churchyard; the Strand; Exeter 'Change; Charing Cross, with a man upon a black horse! These are thy gods, O London! Ain't you mightily moped on the banks of the Cam? Had not you better come and set up here? You can't think what a difference.
But I do not see, that even this extends any farther than to a few toy-shops, and pastry-cooks; and the customers of both these are not of credit sufficient, I think, to weigh in this case: we may as well argue for the fine habits at a puppet-show and a rope-dancing, because they draw the mob about them; but I cannot think, after you go but one degree above these, the thing is of any weight, much less does it bring credit to the tradesman, whatever it may do to the shop.
Might they go to some shops that afternoon, she asked, when she and Nurse were starting for their walk. "To be sure, Miss Ruth; and what sort of shops do you want? Toy-shops, I suppose." "N-no," said Ruth; "I think not. It must be somewhere where they sell note-paper, and a baker's, I think; but I'm not quite sure."
She was lean, and yellow, and long in the tooth; all the red and white in all the toy-shops in London could not make a beauty of her Mr. Killigrew called her the Sybil, the death's-head put up at the King's feast as a memento mori, &c. in fine, a woman who might be easy of conquest, but whom only a very bold man would think of conquering. This bold man was Thomas Esmond.
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