122 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



and down another street too, (the only attempt at a 

 cross-street there was,) for it was a corner window 

 commanding therefore at a glance all the news of 

 the town. 



Ay ! and a deal more too ! Its wide look-out was, 

 like the little dogs just observed upon, emblematic 

 as well as actual. It was the News-room, Reading- 

 room, Petty-Sessions-room, Literary-and-Scientific- 

 room, Farmers'-Club-room, and a great many other 

 rooms besides, that there is not time to tell. Enough 

 to say that the smallest pin ever manufactured could 

 hardly have alighted point downward on the floor 

 of that room metaphorically to speak but every 

 body heard it ten miles round, and could tell you the 

 shape, size, color, and manufacturer's name within 

 the twenty-four hours : and that was short time in 

 those days. 



I shall not describe that room or its bow-window 

 any further. I conceive that the heaps of news- 

 papers, with the noses and spectacles poring over 

 them, and the polished mahogany tables, to sit and 

 read them at in the windows, so as to command the 

 news inside and outside, are sufficiently visible to 

 all average minds'-eyes without more specification. 



Now it happened that at the top of a column 

 in the advertisement-page of the "Wetlandshire 



