the abundance of its stock; a perfectly voracious little shop, with
a maw as accommodating and full as any shark's. Cheese, butter,
firewood, soap, pickles, matches, bacon, table-beer, peg-tops,
sweetmeats, boys' kites, bird-seed, cold ham, birch brooms, hearth-
stones, salt, vinegar, blacking, red-herrings, stationery, lard,
mushroom-ketchup, staylaces, loaves of bread, shuttlecocks, eggs,
and slate pencil; everything was fish that came to the net of this
greedy little shop, and all articles were in its net. How many
other kinds of petty merchandise were there, it would be difficult
to say; but balls of packthread, ropes of onions, pounds of
candles, cabbage-nets, and brushes, hung in bunches from the
ceiling, like extraordinary fruit; while various odd canisters
emitting aromatic smells, established the veracity of the
inscription over the outer door, which informed the public that the
keeper of this little shop was a licensed dealer in tea, coffee,
tobacco, pepper, and snuff.

Glancing at such of these articles as were visible in the shining
of the blaze, and the less cheerful radiance of two smoky lamps
which burnt but dimly in the shop itself, as though its plethora
sat heavy on their lungs; and glancing, then, at one of the two
faces by the parlour-fire; Trotty had small difficulty in
recognising in the stout old lady, Mrs. Chickenstalker: always
inclined to corpulency, even in the days when he had known her as
established in the general line, and having a small balance against
him in her books.

The features of her companion were less easy to him. The great
broad chin, with creases in it large enough to hide a finger in;
the astonished eyes, that seemed to expostulate with themselves for