Page:Bill the minder.djvu/270

 THE LOST GROCER 'My dearest friend was the tea-grocer, a man of sad and dreamy ways and quite devoid of guile, who returned my affection with all the ardour of a singularly loving nature. He shared his every joy with me, and when his holidays came round no greater recreation could he find than in my society. Walking by my side as I strolled along my beat, he would confide to me his simple hopes and fears, and in his troubles seek my readily extended sympathy. Such simplicity and inoffensive mien had he as brought to him a rich harvest of respect and love, together with the custom of his fellow-townsmen.

'In time his little store became quite an evening resort for those older townsmen who, no longer able to race about the green when work was done, would perhaps look in to purchase half a pound of coffee or tea, or sugar or salt for the good wife, and stay chatting with the amiable grocer. Then maybe one would look in to buy an ounce of tobacco, or the excellent snuff for which the grocer was far famed, and so on and so on until the shop was full. Seated around on the tea-chests, coffee bins, tobacco boxes and snuff tins, many a pleasant evening have we spent, enlivened by good-natured arguments and discussions on every conceivable subject.

'One sultry summer's afternoon, as I was standing thinking in the cobbled high-street, the quiet of the still warm day disturbed only by the gentle breathing of the shopmen as they dozed amongst their wares, 202