home-drinking the grocers' licences operate in another way that is not exactly conducive to morality or integrity. I will explain what I mean. At Cambridge I knew an undergraduate who had a somewhat parsimonious pater. The latter limited his son's allowance, and scrutinized his bills pretty closely. But my Verdant Green circumvented the supervision of his male parent by the opportunities offered by the grocers' shops. Although my undergraduate friend was, I knew, kept pretty "short" in the matter of cash supplies, I noticed that he never seemed short of strong drink. He let the cat out of the bag--or let me say the cork out of the bottle--when one day he innocently remarked to me, "I get all my liquor from the grocer's; the governor never looks much at the grocer's account." Leaving the question of wines and spirits, I can illustrate my preference for dealing with men who "know you know" what they are selling, and are, indeed, experts in their trades. Although I am not a good or bad Templar, nor yet a small brass Band of Hope, I confess to a large weakness for tea--good, nice, well-flavoured tea. I have, however, found it somewhat difficult to obtain. Occasionally I taste it at the houses of friends who buy their tea in chests at a time; but as for getting such tea at the usual grocers' shops I have found it difficult, if not impossible. Yet I have been willing to pay up to get some real prime Souchong, Assam, Orange Pekoe, or what not. I do not expect to get a one and twopenny tea with a fine two and ninepenny flavour. Bather recently I have paid 3s. 6d. a pound to get my little luxury; moreover, I tried many and various shops, but all more or less in vain. At last, however, I found salvation by going to a house--a retail shop indeed--that dealt in scarcely anything else but tea. And I now get tea full of delicious fragrance and flavour. It breathes such a splendid aroma before it is tasted that it almost seems a sin to drink it. When, however, I do taste a well-made cup of this infusion I am so happy and benign that (to paraphrase some words of the late Bishop of Oxford) my own wife might play with me. I fear, however, I am getting rather rhapsodical on this question of tea. There are other--what I will call specialist old-style--traders besides those in the teetotal and unteetotal line to which I wish to refer. But these must be reserved for another chapter. XIV. OLD-ESTABLISHED SHOPS. Considering the pace at which Birmingham moved forward during the latter half of the nineteenth century, it is not, perhaps, surprising that few shops and houses of old date are now to be seen in the chief centre streets of the city. A few, however, remain to remind us that Birmingham