ing
away from his father, who was an apothecary in the town, and from the
general practitioner, Mr. Bolus, under whom John Briggs fulfilled the
office of co-assistant with Tom Thurnall. Plenty of trouble had
both the lads given the Doctor in the last five years, but of very
different kinds, Tom, though he was in everlasting hot water, as the
most incorrigible scapegrace for ten miles round, contrived to confine
his naughtiness strictly to play-hours, while he learnt everything
which was to be learnt with marvellous quickness, and so utterly
fulfilled the ideal of a bottle-boy (for of him, too, as of all
things, I presume, an ideal exists eternally in the supra-sensual
Platonic universe), that Bolus told his father,--"In hours, sir, he
takes care of my business as well as I could myself; but out of hours,
sir, I believe he is possessed by seven devils."

John Briggs, on the other hand, sinned in the very opposite direction.
Too proud to learn his business, and too proud also to play the
scapegrace as Tom did, he neglected alike work and amusement, for lazy
mooning over books, and the dreams which books called up. He made
perpetual mistakes in the shop; and then considered himself insulted
by an "inferior spirit," if poor Bolus called him to account for it.
Indeed, had it not been for many applications of that "precious oil of
unity," with which the good Doctor daily anointed the creaking wheels
of Whitbury society, John Briggs and his master would have long ago
"broken out of gear," and parted company in mutual wrath and fury.
And now, indeed, the critical moment seemed come at last; for the lad
began afresh to declare his deliberate intention of going to London to
seek his fortune, in spite of parents and all the world.

"To live on here, and never to rise, perhaps, above the post of
correspondent to a country newspaper!--To publish a volume of poems
by subscription and have to go round, hat in hand, begging
five shillings' worth of patronage from every stupid country
squire--intolerable! I must go! Shakespeare was never Shakespeare till
he fled from miserable Stratford, to become at once the friend of
Sidney and Southampton."

"But John Briggs will be John Briggs still, if he went to the moon,"
shouted Tom Thurnall, who had just come up to the window. "I advise
you to change that name of yours, Jack, to Sidney, or Percy, or Walker
if you like; anything but the illustrious surname of Briggs the
poisoner!"

"What d