That the landlord was a man of money-
making turn was sufficiently testified by the fact of a small bulkhead
beneath the tap-room window, in size and shape not unlike
a sedan-chair, being underlet to a mender of shoes: and that he
was a being of a philanthropic mind was evident from the
protection he afforded to a pieman, who vended his delicacies
without fear of interruption, on the very door-step. In the lower
windows, which were decorated with curtains of a saffron hue,
dangled two or three printed cards, bearing reference to Devonshire
cider and Dantzic spruce, while a large blackboard,
announcing in white letters to an enlightened public, that there
were 500,000 barrels of double stout in the cellars of the establishment,
left the mind in a state of not unpleasing doubt and
uncertainty as to the precise direction in the bowels of the earth, in
which this mighty cavern might be supposed to extend. When we
add that the weather-beaten signboard bore the half-obliterated
semblance of a magpie intently eyeing a crooked streak of brown
paint, which the neighbours had been taught from infancy to
consider as the 'stump,' we have said all that need be said of the
exterior of the edifice.
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