that the business was "Wholesale and Retail."

Dr Drummond and Mr Murchison, considering the changes in
Elgin from the store door, did it at their leisure, the
merchant with his thumbs thrust comfortably in the armholes
of his waistcoat, the minister, with that familiar trick
of his, balancing on one foot and suddenly throwing his
slight weight forward on the other. "A bundle of nerves,"
people called the Doctor: to stand still would have been
a penance to him; even as he swayed backward and forward
in talking, his hand must be busy at the seals on his
watch chain and his shrewd glance travelling over a dozen
things you would never dream so clever a man would take
notice of. It was a prospect of moderate commercial
activity they looked out upon, a street of mellow shopfronts
on both sides, of varying height and importance, wearing
that air of marking a period, a definite stop in growth,
that so often coexists with quite a reasonable degree of
activity and independence in colonial towns. One could
almost say, standing there in the door at Murchison's,
where the line of legitimate enterprise had been overpassed
and where its intention had been none too sanguine--on
the one hand in the faded, and pretentious red brick
building with the false third storey, occupied by Cleary
which must have been let at a loss to dry-goods or anything
else; on the other hand in the solid "Gregory block,"
opposite the market, where rents were as certain as the
dividends of the Bank of British North America.

Main Street expressed the idea that, for the purpose of