om I
could confidently rely. 'Can you direct me to Mr Egg's?' I repeated,
seeing that the smart shopman was so much occupied either in admiring
his window or his own person, that he had not at first attended to my
question.

'I know no such person, ma'am,' he replied rather sharply; and as I
now perceived that the house bore the evidence of fresh paint and
recent alterations, it occurred to me that the smart shopkeeper might
be a new-comer, and ignorant of the old residents. Nothing daunted, I
next entered the shop of a neighbouring bookseller, and repeated my
inquiries, but with no better success. I then made my way to that of
a milliner; and though a young girl, who was busily engaged at her
needle, looked up for a moment with an arch smile, and then turned
away, as I plainly perceived, to repress a hearty laugh, her mistress
dismissed me with the expression of her opinion 'that no such person
lived in that town, nor, she believed, in any other.' I felt a little
puzzled to know what the girl had found so ludicrous in my simple
question, and wondered if my repeated disappointments had given me a
forlorn air. 'At any rate,' thought I, 'this Mr Egg is not so
generally known as I expected to find him. I had better walk up the
street and try if I can discover any outward indications of his
abode.'

I spent a weary half-hour in this endeavour, and as it now seemed
evident to me that no considerable shop could belong to the object of
my search, I lowered my tone in addressing an old apple-woman, who
sat behind a table covered with her stores at the corner of the
street. 'Pray, can you direct me to Billy Egg's?' I asked, dropping
the Mr altogether, and adopting the familiar term which had been used
to me.

'Och, then, to be shure I will, an' welcome, if it was a mile off;
but there it's just furnint ye--that big grand shop there, wid the
big letthers gilt wid goold over the big windees.'

'My good woman,' I replied, 'I am afraid you must be mistaken; the
name there is William Carter.'

'Och, don't I know that? but they call him Billy Egg, because all he
has--and half the town that's his--came out of an egg.'

An exclamation of surprise escaped me, and the old woman
continued--'Och, but well he desarves it, for he is a dacent man, and
good to the poor; God bless him every day he rises, and make the
heavens his bed at last!'

As I took part of her speech as a hint to myself, I gave her
sixpence, and believing there w