‘I know no such person, ma’am,’ he replied rather sharply; and as I now perceived that the house bore the evidence of fresh paint and recent alterations, it occurred to me that the smart shopkeeper might be a new-comer, and ignorant of the old residents.  Nothing daunted, I next entered the shop of a neighbouring bookseller, and repeated my inquiries, but with no better success.  I then made my way to that of a milliner; and though a young girl, who was busily engaged at her needle, looked up for a moment with an arch smile, and then turned away, as I plainly perceived, to repress a hearty laugh, her mistress dismissed me with the expression of her opinion ’that no such person lived in that town, nor, she believed, in any other.’  I felt a little puzzled to know what the girl had found so ludicrous in my simple question, and wondered if my repeated disappointments had given me a forlorn air.  ‘At any rate,’ thought I, ’this Mr Egg is not so generally known as I expected to find him.  I had better walk up the street and try if I can discover any outward indications of his abode.’

I spent a weary half-hour in this endeavour, and as it now seemed evident to me that no considerable shop could belong to the object of my search, I lowered my tone in addressing an old apple-woman, who sat behind a table covered with her stores at the corner of the street.  ‘Pray, can you direct me to Billy Egg’s?’ I asked, dropping the Mr altogether, and adopting the familiar term which had been used to me.

‘Och, then, to be shure I will, an’ welcome, if it was a mile off; but there it’s just furnint ye—­that big grand shop there, wid the big letthers gilt wid goold over the big windees.’

‘My good woman,’ I replied, ’I am afraid you must be mistaken; the name there is William Carter.’

’Och, don’t I know that? but they call him Billy Egg, because all he has—­and half the town that’s his—­came out of an egg.’

An exclamation of surprise escaped me, and the old woman continued—­’Och, but well he desarves it, for he is a dacent man, and good to the poor; God bless him every day he rises, and make the heavens his bed at last!’

As I took part of her speech as a hint to myself, I gave her sixpence, and believing there was some story worth the hearing, I begged my new acquaintance to call on me in the evening and relate it, instead of hindering her business and mine by listening to it at that moment; although I suspect she would have been nothing loath to have given me the full and particular account there and then, for she told me she knew every circumstance ‘consarning him and his.’

I proceeded without further delay to the ‘big grand shop,’ where I saw in the master the veritable Billy Egg.  He was a fine portly personage, with a good open countenance, and it was evident he could not have acquired his nickname from bearing even the most remote resemblance to an egg.  He served me himself with zeal and civility, and my purchases were soon completed.