Mr. Pumblechook's premises in the High Street of the market town,

were of a peppercorny and farinaceous character, as the premises of a

cornchandler and seedsman should be. It appeared to me that he must be a

very happy man indeed, to have so many little drawers in his shop; and

I wondered when I peeped into one or two on the lower tiers, and saw the

tied-up brown paper packets inside, whether the flower-seeds and bulbs

ever wanted of a fine day to break out of those jails, and bloom.

It was in the early morning after my arrival that I entertained this

speculation. On the previous night, I had been sent straight to bed in

an attic with a sloping roof, which was so low in the corner where the

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bedstead was, that I calculated the tiles as being within a foot of my

eyebrows. In the same early morning, I discovered a singular affinity

between seeds and corduroys. Mr. Pumblechook wore corduroys, and so did

his shopman; and somehow, there was a general air and flavor about the

corduroys, so much in the nature of seeds, and a general air and flavor

about the seeds, so much in the nature of corduroys, that I hardly knew

which was which.

The same opportunity served me for noticing that Mr.

Pumblechook appeared to conduct his business by looking across the

street at the saddler, who appeared to transact his business by keeping

his eye on the coachmaker, who appeared to get on in life by putting his

hands in his pockets and contemplating the baker, who in his turn folded

his arms and stared at the grocer, who stood at his door and yawned at

the chemist. The watchmaker, always poring over a little desk with

a magnifying-glass at his eye, and always inspected by a group of

smock-frocks poring over him through the glass of his shop-window,

seemed to be about the only person in the High Street whose trade

engaged his attention.

Mr. Pumblechook and I breakfasted at eight o'clock in the parlor behind

the shop, while the shopman took his mug of tea and hunch of bread

and butter on a sack of peas in the front premises. I considered Mr.

Pumblechook wretched company. Besides being possessed by my sister's

idea that a mortifying and penitential character ought to be imparted

to my diet,--besides giving me as much crumb as possible in combination

with as little butter, and putting such a quantity of warm water into

my milk that it would have been more candid to have left the milk out

altogether,--his conversation consisted of nothing but arithmetic. On

my politely bidding him Good morning, he said, pompously, "Seven times

nine, boy?" And how should I be able to answer, dodged in that way, in

a strange place, on an empty stomach! I was hungry, but before I had

swallowed a morsel, he began a running sum that lasted all through the

breakfast. "Seven?" "And four?" "And eight?" "And six?" "And two?" "And

ten?" And so on. And after each figure was disposed of, it was as much

as I could do to get a bite or a sup, before the next came; while he sat

at his ease guessing nothing, and eating bacon and hot roll, in (if I

may be allowed the expression) a gorging and gormandizing manner.




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