Set within a grocer’s small parlour, a grotesque man, known as ‘Mr. Fig’, sits upon a chair beside a table. Seated on his lap is his daughter, also an unattractive figure, who plays with the various tea-things on the table. Despite causing havoc – she has broken a teapot which now leaks tea, and has overturned a milk-jug, causing a pool of milk to form on the floor which a cat laps up – her father smiles down at her, blissfully ignorant of the child’s wrongdoings. ‘Mrs. Fig’, the mother, who is equally as grotesque, stands to the right of the composition, waving her arms to grab her husband’s attention. Not only does she appear frustrated at the child’s behaviour, but angered by the father’s ignorance and idiocy. Mr. Fig, completely immersed with his child, not only disregards the breakages in front of him, but fails to acknowledge the kettle boiling over to the left, and the red-hot poker burning the floor. Such havoc is somewhat mirrored by the picture hanging on the wall behind. The image of a flaming globe, which was the sign for a few public houses in the outskirts of London, is titled with ‘The Worlds End’. Set to the left of the composition, a large china mandarin sits upon the mantelpiece, alluding to Mr. Fig’s association with the tea-trade. Also on the mantelpiece is a medicine-bottle, labelled with ‘Composing Draught for Miss Fig’. Slightly to the right, a letter rack is fixed to the wall, filled with letters written to ‘Mr Fig Grocer’.