"A werry nice sorter place," said the cabman, gazing down at the numerous children, and the preternaturally big-headed, tadpoleish babies, whose porters were staring at him. "Said it was a little groshers shop. Ah, here we are." It was only four doors farther on, and at this establishment there was a shop front, with the name "B. Sturt" on the facia. The stock here did not seem to be extensive, though the place was scrupulously clean. There was a decorative and pictorial aspect about the trade carried on, which was evidently that of a chandler's shop; for, in attenuated letters over the door, you read that Barnabas Sturt was licenced by the Board of Inland Revenue to deal in tea, coffee, pepper, vinegar, and tobacco. The panes of the windows were gay with show cards, one of which displayed the effects of Tomkins's Baking Powder, while in another a lady was holding up fine linen got up with Winks's Prussian Blue, and smiling sweetly at a neighbouring damsel stiff with regal starch. There were pictorial cards, too, telling of the celebrated Unadulterated Mustard, the Ho-fi Tea Company, and Fort's Popular Coffee. Descending from his perch, the cabman stroked and patted his horse, and then entered the shop, setting a bell jingling, and standing face to face with a counter, a pair of scales, and a box of red herrings. Nobody came, so he tapped the floor with his whip, and a voice growled savagely from beyond a half-glass door which guarded an inner room-- Waiting patiently for a few moments, the cabman became aware of the fact that Barnabas Sturt consumed his tobacco as well as dealt in it; and at last, growing impatient, he peered through the window, to perceive that a very thin, sour-looking woman, with high cheek bones, was dipping pieces of rag into a tea-cup of vinegar and water, and applying them to the contused countenance of a bull-headed gentleman, who lay back in a chair smoking, and making the woman wince and sneeze by puffing volumes of the coarse, foul vapour into her face. "Better mind what you are doing!" he growled. "Can't help it, dear," said the woman, plaintively, "if you smoke me so. Well, what now?" she said, waspishly, and changing her tone to the metallic aggressive common amongst some women. "Been having a--?" the cabman finished his sentence by grinning, and giving his arms a pugilistic flourish. "What's that got to do with you?" growled Mr Sturt. "What d' yer come into people's places like that for?" "Because people says as they sells the werry best tobacco at threepence a hounce," said the cabman. "Give's half-hounce." "Go an' weigh it," said Mr Sturt. The woman dropped the piece of rag she held, and passed shrinkingly into the shop, took the already weighed-out tobacco from a jar, and held out her hand for the money. "Now then," growled Mr Sturt from the back room, "hand that over here, will yer?"