'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.
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