“Indeed!” cried the angler:  “is it far from this?”

“Not a quarter of a mile,” replied the boy.

“That is nothing.  I’ve walked eighteen this morning,” said the old gentleman, packing up his apparatus.  “I’ll go with you directly, and thank you too, for I’m a perfect stranger in these parts.”

When he had joined them, the laughing fits of the younger had subsided, although he chose to fall in the rear.  “Now, to shew you how much more profitable it is to respect than to mock at your superiors in years, there’s a (let me see)—­there’s a halfpenny for you to purchase cakes.”

“Thank ye, sir,” said he, and turning to his companion with a wink:  “Here Bill, run to Cummins’ and buy a ha’p’orth of eights—­we’ll make the most of it—­and I’ll come to you as soon as I’ve shown the gentleman the fish.”

“Show me the place, and I’ll find the fish,” said the anticipating angler.

On they trudged.

“Must we go through the town?” asked his companion, as he marched with his long rod in one hand and his can in the other.

“Yes, sir, it ain’t far;” and he walked on at a quicker pace, while all the crowd of rustics gazed at t e extraordinary appearance of the armed Waltonian, for it happened to be market-day.  After parading him in this fashion nearly through the town, he presently twitched him by his coat-sleeve.

“Look there, sir!” cried he, pointing to a well-stocked fishmonger’s.

“Beautiful!—­what a quantity!” exclaimed the venerable piscator.

“I thought you’d like it, sir—­that’s the place for fish, sir,—­good morning.”

“Eh! what—­you young dog?”

“That’s where father gets all his, I assure you, sir,—­good morning,” said the youth, and making a mock reverence, bounded off as fast as his legs could carry him.

SCENE XV.

“Vy, Sarah, you’re drunk!  I am quite ashamed o’ you.”

“Vell, vots the odds as long as you’re happy!”

Jack was an itinerant vender of greens, and his spouse was a peripatetic distributor of the finny tribe, (sprats, herrings or mackerel, according to the season,) and both picked up a tolerable livelihood by their respective callings.

Like the lettuces he sold, Jack had a good heart, and his attention was first attracted to the subsequent object of his election by the wit of a passing boy, who asked the damsel how she sold her carrots?  Jack’s eyes were in an instant turned towards one whom he considered a competitor in the trade—­when he beheld the physiognomy of his Sarah beaming with smiles beneath an abundant crop of sunny hair!

“You are a beauty and no mistake,” exclaimed the green grocer in admiration.

“Flummery!” replied the damsel—­the deep blush of modesty mantling her cheeks.  Jack rested his basket on a post beside her stall, and drank deep draughts of love, while Sarah’s delicate fingers were skilfully employed in undressing a pound of wriggling eels for a customer.