"Honest folk," thought the landlady, "don't travel with their initials only; the last 'Whitehall Evening' was full of shocking accounts of swindlers and cheats; and I gave nine pounds odd shillings for the silver teapot John has brought him up,--as if the delft one was not good enough for a foot traveller!" Pursuing these ideas, Mrs. Taptape, looking bashfully down, said,-- "By the by, sir; Mr. Bossolton asked me what name he should put down in his book for the medicines; what would you please me to say, sir?" "Mr. who?" said the youth, elevating his eyebrows. "Mr. Bossolton, sir, the apothecary." "Oh! Bossolton! very odd name that,--not near so pretty as--dear me, what a beautiful cap that is of yours!" said the young gentleman. "Lord, sir, do you think so? The ribbon is pretty enough; but--but, as I was saying, what name shall I tell Mr. Bossolton to put in his book?" "This," thought Mrs. Taptape, "is coming to the point." "Well!" said the youth, slowly, and as if in a profound reverie, "well, Bossolton is certainly the most singular name I ever heard; he does right to put it in a book: it is quite a curiosity! is he clever?" "Very, sir," said the landlady, somewhat sharply; "but it is your name, not his, that he wishes to put into his book." "Mine?" said the youth, who appeared to have been seeking to gain time in order to answer a query which most men find requires very little deliberation, "mine, you say; my name is Linden--Clarence Linden--you understand?" "What a pretty name!" thought the landlady's daughter, who was listening at the keyhole; "but how could he admire that odious cap of Ma's!" "And, now, landlady, I wish you would send up my boxes; and get me a newspaper, if you please." "Yes, sir," said the landlady, and she rose to retire. "I do not think," said the youth to himself, "that I could have hit on a prettier name, and so novel a one too!--Clarence Linden,--why, if I were that pretty girl at the bar I could fall in love with the very words. Shakspeare was quite wrong when he said,-- 'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.'" "A rose by any name would not smell as sweet; if a rose's name was Jeremiah Bossolton, for instance, it would not, to my nerves at least, smell of anything but an apothecary's shop!"