Tinker.  That’s a good way off, isn’t it?

Myself.  Not very far; over those mountains to the left, and the run of salt water that lies behind them, there’s Ireland.

Tinker.  It’s a fine thing to be a scholar.

Myself.  Not half so fine as to be a tinker.

Tinker.  How you talk!

Myself.  Nothing but the truth; what can be better than to be one’s own master?  Now a tinker is his own master, a scholar is not.  Let us suppose the best of scholars, a schoolmaster for example, for I suppose you will admit that no one can be higher in scholarship than a schoolmaster; do you call his a pleasant life?  I don’t; we should call him a school-slave, rather than a schoolmaster.  Only conceive him in blessed weather like this, in his close school, teaching children to write in copy-books, ‘Evil communication corrupts good manners,’ or ’You cannot touch pitch without defilement,’ or to spell out of Abedariums, or to read out of Jack Smith, or Sandford and Merton.  Only conceive him, I say, drudging in such guise from morning till night, without any rational enjoyment but to beat the children.  Would you compare such a dog’s life as that with your own—­the happiest under heaven—­true Eden life, as the Germans would say,—­pitching your tent under the pleasant hedgerows, listening to the song of the feathered tribes, collecting all the leaky kettles in the neighbourhood, soldering and joining, earning your honest bread by the wholesome sweat of your brow—­making ten holes—­hey, what’s this? what’s the man crying for?

Suddenly the tinker had covered his face with his hands, and begun to sob and moan like a man in the deepest distress; the breast of his wife was heaved with emotion; even the children were agitated, the youngest began to roar.

Myself.  What’s the matter with you; what are you all crying about?

Tinker (uncovering his face).  Lord, why to hear you talk; isn’t that enough to make anybody cry—­even the poor babes?  Yes, you said right, ’tis life in the garden of Eden—­the tinker’s; I see so now that I’m about to give it up.

Myself.  Give it up! you must not think of such a thing.

Tinker.  No, I can’t bear to think of it, and yet I must; what’s to be done?  How hard to be frightened to death, to be driven off the roads.

Myself.  Who has driven you off the roads?

Tinker.  Who! the Flaming Tinman.

Myself.  Who is he?

Tinker.  The biggest rogue in England, and the cruellest, or he wouldn’t have served me as he has done—­I’ll tell you all about it.  I was born upon the roads, and so was my father before me, and my mother too; and I worked with them as long as they lived, as a dutiful child, for I have nothing to reproach myself with on their account; and when my father died I took up