'Variety Shop' was a just and proper name for such an assemblage of
every thing ever devised for the convenience and inconvenience of
human beings. There were caps after Parisian fashions for ladies,
and there, not far off, were horse nets and blankets. There were
collars after the newest patterns for gentlemen, and yokes for oxen.
There were corsets and Noah's arks, salt fish and sugar almonds,
Chinese Joshes and Little Samuels, accordeons and fish horns,
almanacs, Joe Millers, and Bibles, toothpicks and churns, silver
thimbles and wash tubs, penknives, tweezers and pickaxes, Adams and
Eves in sugar, and Napoleons in brass. In short, what was there not
in that shop?

Ned entered, and his eyes were dazzled with the show and the
variety. He had some money in his pocket, and spend it now he began
to think he must; the fire burned very hot in that little pocket of
his, it must be put out. Somewhere or other it must go, that
troublesome seventy-five cents.

Now what did Ned want of toothpicks, or churns, or horse blankets,
or collars, or caps, or yokes, or thimbles, or tubs? A little Samuel
his aunt had given him. A Chinese Josh had a charm for him. He would
look at it.

The shopman, who had once been a pedler, saw the state of things
with Ned, and resolved to relieve him of that burning trouble in his
pocket, if possible. The man was an honest fellow, and meant to give
Ned his money's worth. But an exchange was no robbery, and he was
convinced that it would be better for both sides if something in his
Variety Shop should go to Ned, and Ned's money should go into the
money drawer.