The result of this admirable attitude of indifference is that America is the paradise of "shoppers," ladies who have no intention whatever of buying, but who do love to see new things. It lies really between you and your conscience how many bales of goods you have unpacked without the remotest idea of purchasing anything. If at the end you make a few disparaging remarks and retire from the scene, the saleslady replaces the goods, perfectly indifferent as to your having bought nothing.
The English shopgirl, on the other hand, makes it a personal affront if you do not buy; but there is excuse for her often enough, for in some shops, unfortunately, it is the cruel regulation that if she misses a certain number of sales she is discharged. Whether it pays to scare the saleslady into terrorising her customers to death is a question; personally, I avoid such shops; I cannot be lured twice into buying what I don't want because of the frown of the young lady. Nor does it even soothe my ruffled feelings when the shopwalker thanks me profusely as he countersigns the bill.
Shopkeepers should be very particular as to their young saleslady's nose; the very superior kind just crushes the public. England is a proof that it is not the eye that is born to command, but the stately Roman nose. It has given the world quite a wrong idea of Englishmen, who have gone on their triumphant way in the wake of that majestic feature, to the alarm and respect of the rest of the world. Had it been less aggressive, the world might possibly now fear England less and love her more. Yet such trivialities make history.
If you have a good conscience, the only wielder of temporary power who appears mighty and yet mild is the policeman. To the bad conscience he represents more the solid terrors of the law than the Lord Chief Justice himself. He is the only creature from whom familiarity never takes away any of his terrors.
We once had an old cook who put it in a nutshell. "Happy is he who can look a policeman in the face," she declared. The wisdom of it! After all, is not half the world running away from retributive justice? Think, then, of the blessing of a legalised conscience. To be at peace with the policeman! Think of the rapture of envy a poor, hunted-down burglar must feel as he sees an ordinary citizen pass that awful being in a helmet without a quake.