le." And on his counter is a very fruity specimen cut
across. As a result of this competition "the strangers" may count on
quite respectable cakes for their tea.

There are two grocers--brothers, oddly enough, though not connected in
trade; steady, peaceable old men with whom brotherly love continues
despite trade rivalry.

But they possess a live young assistant each, and it is war to the knife
between these lads.

They fall on the startled stranger before he is fairly out of the train
and thrust before him the merits of their respective establishments.

Howie, the boy of Septimus Smith, is lean and lanky and can stretch a
long arm and a trade card for an amazing distance to just beneath your
nose. But Larkin is small and wiry and has a knack of squeezing himself
right into the midst of your mountain of luggage and children and
porters, and earnestly informing you that Octavius Smith keeps the best
bacon in the district, and promising you that if you deal with him, he,
Larkin, will bring your letters with him from the post office every
morning when he calls for orders.

It is said that the loser invariably fights the winner after these
contests unless there falls to his lot another passenger by the same
train. But if it happens that the luck is to neither,--that is, if all
are hotel or boarding-house visitors, or (an unforgivable thing in the
eyes of both) if the newcomers are people who bring their own groceries
from the metropolis, then the two go off almost friends and help each
other up with any boxes the train may have brought for them.

The Lomax children took a keen interest in the warfare, and always asked
Larkin, when he came for orders in the morning, how many of the new
people's custom he had secured.

For it was Larkin's trick of insinuating himself among the portmanteaus
and confused servants and children, and then talking rapidly of bacon
and letters, that had gained him Mrs. Lomax's custom when the family
first came to Burunda. That bewildered lady simply had to consent that
he might call to get him out of the knot of seemingly inextricable
confusion with which she had to deal.

There are two photographers, two shoe-menders, two house agents, two
visiting doctors.

It is conceivable that if a third man of any trade come along the
character of business in Burunda may entirely change. But while there
are but two of each, the chances are that any day the visitors may have
the quiet monotony of th