The shop of Dr. Tadpole was fitted up in a very curious manner, and excited a great deal of admiration. During his service afloat he had collected various objects of natural history, which he had set up or prepared himself: the lower rows of bottles in the windows were full of snakes, lizards, and other reptiles; the second tier of bottles in the window were the same as are now generally seen--large globes containing blue and yellow mixtures, with gold hieroglyphics outside of them; but between each of these bottles was a stuffed animal of some kind, generally a small monkey, or of that description. The third row of bottles was the most incomprehensible: no one could tell what was in them; and the doctor, when asked, would laugh and shake his head: this made the women very curious. I believe they were chiefly preparations of the stomach, and other portions of the interior of the animal frame; but the doctor always said that it was his row of "secrets," and used to amuse himself with evading the questions of the other sex. There were some larger specimens of natural history suspended from the ceiling, chiefly skulls and bones of animals; and on the shelves inside a great variety of stones and pebbles and fragments of marble figures, which the doctor had picked up, I believe, in the Mediterranean: altogether the shop was a strange medley, and made people stare very much when they came into it. The doctor kept an old woman to cook and clean the house, and his boy Tom, whom I have already mentioned. Tom was a good-natured lad, and, as his master said, very fond of liquorice; but the doctor used to laugh at that (when Tom was not by), saying, "It's very true that Tom cribs my _liquorice_; but I will say this for him, he is very honest about _jalap_ and _rhubarb_, and I have never missed a grain."