when my parents made over my property to me, I tell you true, there was twelve sheets, twelve towels, twelve table-cloths, twelve knives, twelve forks, twelve tablespoons, and twelve teaspoons, but my set of fingers was two short of a dozen, and could never since be matched.  Now what else is it?  Come, I’ll tell you.  It’s a hoop of solid gold, wrapped in a silver curl-paper, that I myself took off the shining locks of the ever beautiful old lady in Threadneedle Street, London city; I wouldn’t tell you so if I hadn’t the paper to show, or you mightn’t believe it even of me.  Now what else is it?  It’s a man-trap and a handcuff, the parish stocks and a leg-lock, all in gold and all in one.  Now what else is it?  It’s a wedding-ring.  Now I’ll tell you what I’m a going to do with it.  I’m not a going to offer this lot for money; but I mean to give it to the next of you beauties that laughs, and I’ll pay her a visit to-morrow morning at exactly half after nine o’clock as the chimes go, and I’ll take her out for a walk to put up the banns.”  She laughed, and got the ring handed up to her.  When I called in the morning, she says, “O dear!  It’s never you, and you never mean it?” “It’s ever me,” says I, “and I am ever yours, and I ever mean it.”  So we got married, after being put up three times—­which, by the bye, is quite in the Cheap Jack way again, and shows once more how the Cheap Jack customs pervade society.

She wasn’t a bad wife, but she had a temper.  If she could have parted with that one article at a sacrifice, I wouldn’t have swopped her away in exchange for any other woman in England.  Not that I ever did swop her away, for we lived together till she died, and that was thirteen year.  Now, my lords and ladies and gentlefolks all, I’ll let you into a secret, though you won’t believe it.  Thirteen year of temper in a Palace would try the worst of you, but thirteen year of temper in a Cart would try the best of you.  You are kept so very close to it in a cart, you see.  There’s thousands of couples among you getting on like sweet ile upon a whetstone in houses five and six pairs of stairs high, that would go to the Divorce Court in a cart.  Whether the jolting makes it worse, I don’t undertake to decide; but in a cart it does come home to you, and stick to you.  Wiolence in a cart is so wiolent, and aggrawation in a cart is so aggrawating.

We might have had such a pleasant life!  A roomy cart, with the large goods hung outside, and the bed slung underneath it when on the road, an iron pot and a kettle, a fireplace for the cold weather, a chimney for the smoke, a hanging-shelf and a cupboard, a dog and a horse.  What more do you want?  You draw off upon a bit of turf in a green lane or by the roadside, you hobble your old horse and turn him grazing, you light your fire upon the ashes of the last visitors, you cook your stew, and you wouldn’t call the Emperor of France your father.  But have a temper in the cart, flinging language and the hardest goods in stock at you, and where are you then?  Put a name to your feelings.