Page:Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth (Macmillan, 1897) (IA cu31924104001478).pdf/50

 the baker's hands, for which I was to have had four small rolls. He gave me two. I let him understand that I was to have four, and with this view I took one shilling from him, pointed to it and to two loaves, and at the same time offering it to him. Again I took up two others. In a savage manner he half knocked the rolls out of my hand, and when I asked him for the other shilling he refused to return it, and would neither suffer me to take bread, nor give me back my money, and on these terms I quitted the shop. I am informed that it is the boast and glory of these people to cheat strangers, that when a feat of this kind is successfully performed the man goes from the shop into his house, and triumphantly relates it to his wife and family. The Hamburgher shopkeepers have three sorts of weights, and a great part of their skill, as shopkeepers, consists in calculating upon the knowledge of the buyer, and suiting him with scales accordingly

Saturday, 30th September.—The grand festival of the Hamburghers, dedicated to Saint Michael, observed with solemnity, but little festivity. Perhaps this might be partly owing to the raininess of the evening. In the morning the churches were opened very early. St. Christopher's was quite full between eight and nine o'clock. It is a large heavy-looking building, immense, without either grandeur or beauty; built of brick, and with few windows There are some pictures one of the Saint fording the river with Christ upon his back—a giant figure, which amused me not a little Walked with Coleridge and Chester upon the promenade We took places in the morning in the Brunswick coach for Wednesday.

Sunday, 1st October.—Coleridge and Chester went to Ratzeberg at seven o'clock in the morning William and I set forward at half-past eleven with an intention of going to Blankenese The buildings all seem solid and warm in themselves, but still they look cold from their nakedness of trees. They are generally newly