THE LONG BAZAAR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2400, 1 March 1900, Page 55

THE LONG BAZAAR.

By Jessie Mackat. ■ I. Nine of the clock and a fair morning. The City of the Plains awake from her industrial slumber ; it is the time of opening shutters and sweeping doorsteps ; and a little frost of discontent silvers her morning greeting to the sun. She is like a fine damsel frowning at being caught unawares in curling pins ana wrapper ; the shadow of the coming day's labour lies prophetically on hei spirit. The early shopper in Hobart, it is said, has sad reason tc think himself in Laputa, the Island ol Dreamers, and sighs for the Flapper's Wand to deal ' with the somnambulist who stares at him across the" counter. In Christchurch the industrial soul is awake betimes, but it is sad and faintly acrid. There are smiles and smiles in the uncodified -pages of the Whole Duty bfwShopmen, but a smile at 9 weighs down the modulated article evolved by half-past 10, as a rosy Irish peach off the tree shames a string of dried pie-apples on the shelf. It is the time when denizens of the city fiats descend to the day s marketing ; and those who have mellow memories of the bush-bird's song at dawn and gleams of dead carnation and morning-glory sigh a little, and try to imitate the unsoulful chirpiness of the grey cosmopolitan sparrow, and to pick cheerful crumbs of observation off the pavement. On a dark day, when the jagged points of the Port Hills seem to tear sullenly into a woollen sky of hodden grey, the scene is simply oui block, in all its bareness Of disillusion. But when the sun reigns and the south wind sleeps, the spirit of romance creeps into the town. There are dewy blooms of pansy and pelargonium in that window ; there are rich purple gages and blood-red love-apples in this ; and on that tiny ray of oriental colouring the tricksy sprite flies off with'us to Bagdad or Mosul, where we saunter in spirit from shop to fchop with Abou Has-" san, and watch' him cheapening and tasting fruit and cakes till his simple philosopher's meal is ended. We, too, keep house like the birds and Abou Hassan ; we, too, are exempt from the gross matter of fact mediocrity that buys its sugar by the hundredweight, and knows not the love-apple of our ancestors, save as " tomato." To-day, it is no longer our block along which we loiter ; it is the Long Bazaar of the Calip's city. The men and women who serve are not the nameless units of commercialism : they are speculative handles «ggj in the blank stonework of life ; if we

kneAv lioav to turn them, Avliat doors would fly back, Avhat stories would fly out ! But Aye do not moralise so early ; Aye have no eye for tragedy till the pot au feu is Avell set boiling : Aye only Avant a light crumb or tAvo of amusement to flavour the day's supplies.

The Troll is A^ery cheerful this morning. We imagine that he has just lured a hapless northman into his cavern, and that he chuckles iioav to think lioav the big blue eyes of the captive Avill please the baby Trolls for beads, and lioav his yelloAv hair Avill plait into snares foi the mountain birds. We smile to think lioav the unsuspected mouth of that caA r ern is deemed an innocent pile of tins and butter boxes ; and how the Troll himself, in the, dull eyes of the city, is but a harmless baker and biscuit man. We knoAV better : Aye have some idea of the terrible bargains he has come to make out of mortal's necessity in this bold settlement where men do congregate. Who but an Earth Demon could present such a picture of sandy, squat maleA-olence? Who but his northern familiars, the thousand-year-old toads of the rock, could have taught him such a grin? And yet Aye have had dealings AA'ith the Troll ourselves. Perhaps it Avas that loA r e of sailing. near the wind in demoniac transactions that is inherent in humanity, xlt any rate, there Avas a certain infernal crustiness in his loaves that charmed us for an unregenerate month or tAvo. Then qualms came oA r er us as the dubiety and earthiness of his Avares came home to our minds. Noav Aye pa,«s hurriedly, lest the little, squat hilhnan should shoot a venom at his recreant customers.

Lovely and delicate as the daAvn is the Pretty Girl hi our oAvn special fruit shop. She is the handmaid of Ceres, and the pearl of the ' block. " She has a smile to cheex the wintriest morning. Her beauty is not the imperious, autumnal bloom of her mistress, albeit she dispenses the Earth Mother's gifts : she is childlike. suggestiA-e, spirituelle. When Aye offer her the base broAvn coin that buys one golden lemon for our modest cup of fruit Avater, she thanks us as if AA r e had bought .out the shop. Sometimes it is said there is better and even cheaper fruit elsewhere ; but Aye decline to believe that a special SAveetnePs does not cling round the Pretty Girl's wares that is not obtainable at any other window in the Long Bazaar. One cannot lose the idea that she vends oranges and lemons in a thirsty land out of pure philanthropy, not for base lucre, and that the monetary element onfy occurs by a sort of diA r ine accident. One thinks, too, of George SJacdonald's vision of the " Shops in Heaven." Certainly the Pretty Girl Avould have a stall there, and dispense nectarines Arith just the same smile as noAv. She is not .lie only occupant of the shop : others serA-e there, — pleasant, earthly souls, avlio haA r e yet caught a little of the glamour that surrounds the Pretty Girl. Little enough does her smiling, chastened reserve recall the thoughtless cruelty of fair, flighty Peg-a-Ramsay, avlio scorned the 'prentice lad, and yet used him at her need ; but Aye should not wonder if that dark young felloAV, swinging oases ,'ji bananas in from the street, cherished the loA'e and ambition that turned poor Jenkin Vincent into a desperado. Does the true romance burn iioav in the 'prentice heart as it did in the days of Good King Jamie, of anti-nicotinous memory? Perhaps the Pretty Girl knoAVS, but she Avill not tell.