I had stepped into the shop, and as I looked around at the nearly empty shelves, dotted here and there with a few miserable fly-blown bottles, I thought that a man in search of health or of a remedy for a bodily ailment could not have found a more unlikely place for relief.

"Is it opening medicine?" said the woman. "I can serve you."

"My business is not professional," I replied.

She cast a suspicious glance at me, and I guessed that she supposed me to be a dun.

"It may be something of advantage to him," I observed.

She brightened up instantly.

"My husband is not in," she said; "but you may find him at the George."

"At the George?"

"Or the Green Dragon," she added.

"Where are they? Far from here?"