And his grief—­whence came his sorrow?  I will tell you.  He bore it in his hand.  He had evidently just concluded the compact by which it became his.  His business was that of a purchaser of domestic raiment.  At early dawn nay, at what hour when the city is alive—­do we not all hear the nasal cry of “Clo?” In Paris, Habits Galons, Marchand d’habits, is the twanging signal with which the wandering merchant makes his presence known.  It was in Paris I saw this man.  Where else have I not seen him?  In the Roman Ghetto—­at the Gate of David, in his fathers’ once imperial city.  The man I mean was an itinerant vender and purchaser of wardrobes—­what you call an . . .  Enough!  You know his name.

On his left shoulder hung his bag; and he held in that hand a white hat, which I am sure he had just purchased, and which was the cause of the grief which smote his noble features.  Of course I cannot particularize the sum, but he had given too much for that hat.  He felt he might have got the thing for less money.  It was not the amount, I am sure; it was the principle involved.  He had given fourpence (let us say) for that which threepence would have purchased.  He had been done:  and a manly shame was upon him, that he, whose energy, acuteness, experience, point of honor, should have made him the victor in any mercantile duel in which he should engage, had been overcome by a porter’s wife, who very likely sold him the old hat, or by a student who was tired of it.  I can understand his grief.  Do I seem to be speaking of it in a disrespectful or flippant way?  Then you mistake me.  He had been outwitted.  He had desired, coaxed, schemed, haggled, got what he wanted, and now found he had paid too much for his bargain.  You don’t suppose I would ask you to laugh at that man’s grief?  It is you, clumsy cynic, who are disposed to sneer, whilst it may be tears of genuine sympathy are trickling down this nose of mine.  What do you mean by laughing?  If you saw a wounded soldier on the field of battle, would you laugh?  If you saw a ewe robbed of her lamb, would you laugh, you brute?  It is you who are the cynic, and have no feeling:  and you sneer because that grief is unintelligible to you which touches my finer sensibility.  The old-clothes’-man had been defeated in one of the daily battles of his most interesting, chequered, adventurous life.

Have you ever figured to yourself what such a life must be?  The pursuit and conquest of twopence must be the most eager and fascinating of occupations.  We might all engage in that business if we would.  Do not whist-players, for example, toil, and think, and lose their temper over sixpenny points?  They bring study, natural genius, long forethought, memory, and careful historical experience to bear upon their favorite labor.  Don’t tell me that it is the sixpenny points, and five shillings the rub, which keeps them for hours over their painted pasteboard.  It is the desire to conquer.  Hours pass by.