It was a large and populous place, with one broad street running up a hill, and several smaller ones deviating from the main road at right angles, with numerous lanes and alleys meandering at the back. Here Joshua Brown paused at the inn where the coach stopped, and at which he was well known and respected; and leaving the boy there, with a strong recommendation, he himself walked up the hill, stopping for a moment or two at one of those shops which, as is common in country towns, combined the sale of jewellery with that of pasteboard, stamps and books, soap, toys, and sealing-wax. A few very significant words passed between him and the master of the shop; and then Joshua Brown sallied forth again, turned into one of the side streets, then down a narrow sort of lane, with small houses on either hand, and stopped opposite a portentous-looking black baby in a white cap and long-clothes, which hung suspended from an iron stanchion on the left hand side of the door. On the other side was a shop, with very small panes of glass in the window, over which was an inscription, purporting that Mingleton Bowes was a dealer in marine stores. Now, what anybody could want with marine stores in one of the most inland towns of all England, from which there was no communication whatever with the sea, except by wagon or stage-coach, the inscription did not set forth. However, Joshua Brown entered the shop, and found it vacant of everything but rusty pieces of iron, coils of rope, rolls of lead, copper and iron weights, an immense variety of scales and balances, a great quantity of links and torches, the most complete assortment of candle-ends in Europe, large stone jars filled with dripping, two or three piles of rags, bundles of quills, packets of cocoa, numerous red-herrings, stock-fish, and kippered salmon, a jar of Russian cranberries, and an infinite variety of odoriferous articles, squalid to look upon, and not much more agreeable to the nose than to the eye. In short, it would seem the title of "dealer in marine stores" implies, that a man buys and sells everything under the sun. As there was no human being in the shop, nor any other animate creature whatever except an enormous white cat sitting upon the counter, her hairy back resting upon the cut side of a single Gloucester cheese, Joshua first rubbed his feet upon the floor to call attention to his presence, and not finding that to succeed, he stamped once or twice. It is wonderful how indifferent the people of the house were to the chances of robbery; for, though he stamped, nobody came, and he might have carried off the large jar of cranberries itself without attracting any attention.