Say two pound, say thirty shillings, say a pound, say ten shillings, say five, say two and six.  You don’t say even two and six?  You say two and three?  No.  You shan’t have the lot for two and three.  I’d sooner give it to you, if you was good-looking enough.  Here!  Missis!  Chuck the old man and woman into the cart, put the horse to, and drive ’em away and bury ’em!” Such were the last words of Willum Marigold, my own father, and they were carried out, by him and by his wife, my own mother, on one and the same day, as I ought to know, having followed as mourner.

My father had been a lovely one in his time at the Cheap Jack work, as his dying observations went to prove.  But I top him.  I don’t say it because it’s myself, but because it has been universally acknowledged by all that has had the means of comparison.  I have worked at it.  I have measured myself against other public speakers,—­Members of Parliament, Platforms, Pulpits, Counsel learned in the law,—­and where I have found ’em good, I have took a bit of imagination from ’em, and where I have found ’em bad, I have let ’em alone.  Now I’ll tell you what.  I mean to go down into my grave declaring that of all the callings ill used in Great Britain, the Cheap Jack calling is the worst used.  Why ain’t we a profession?  Why ain’t we endowed with privileges?  Why are we forced to take out a hawker’s license, when no such thing is expected of the political hawkers?  Where’s the difference betwixt us?  Except that we are Cheap Jacks and they are Dear Jacks, I don’t see any difference but what’s in our favour.

For look here!  Say it’s election time.  I am on the footboard of my cart in the market-place, on a Saturday night.  I put up a general miscellaneous lot.  I say:  “Now here, my free and independent woters, I’m a going to give you such a chance as you never had in all your born days, nor yet the days preceding.  Now I’ll show you what I am a going to do with you.  Here’s a pair of razors that’ll shave you closer than the Board of Guardians; here’s a flat-iron worth its weight in gold; here’s a frying-pan artificially flavoured with essence of beefsteaks to that degree that you’ve only got for the rest of your lives to fry bread and dripping in it and there you are replete with animal food; here’s a genuine chronometer watch in such a solid silver case that you may knock at the door with it when you come home late from a social meeting, and rouse your wife and family, and save up your knocker for the postman; and here’s half-a-dozen dinner plates that you may play the cymbals with to charm baby when it’s fractious.  Stop!  I’ll throw in another article, and I’ll give you that, and it’s a rolling-pin; and if the baby can only get it well into its mouth when its teeth is coming and rub the gums once with it, they’ll come through double, in a fit of laughter equal to being tickled.  Stop again!  I’ll throw you in another article, because I