She's a fortune-teller. She can tell me all
about you in a whisper, and can put me up to
whether you're a-going to buy a lot or leave it.
Now do you want a saw? No, she says you
don't, because you're too clumsy to use one.
Else here's a saw which would be a lifelong
blessing to a handy man, at four shillings, at
three and six, at three, at two and six, at two,
at eighteenpence. But none of you shall have
it at any price, on account of your well-known
awkwardness which would make it manslaughter.
The same objection applies to this set of three
planes which I won't let you have neither, so
don't bid for 'em. Now I am a-going to ask her
what you do want. (Then I whispered, "Your
head burns so, that I am afraid it hurts you bad,
my pet," and she answered, without opening her
heavy eyes, "Just a little, father.") Oh! This
little fortune-teller says it's a memorandum-book
you want. Then why didn't you mention it?
Here it is. Look at it. Two hundred super-fine
hot-pressed wire-wove pages—if you don't
believe me, count 'em—ready ruled for your
expenses, an everlastingly-pointed pencil to put
'em down with, a double-bladed penknife to
scratch 'em out with, a book of printed tables
to calculate your income with, and a camp-stool
to sit down upon while you give your mind to
it! Stop! And an umbrella to keep the moon
off when you give your mind to it on a pitch dark
night. Now I won't ask you how much for
the lot, but how little? How little are you
thinking of? Don't be ashamed to mention it,
because my fortune-teller knows already. (Then
making believe to whisper, I kissed her, and she
kissed me.) Why, she says you're thinking of
as little as three and threepence! I couldn't
have believed it, even of you, unless she told me.
Three and threepence! And a set of printed
tables in the lot that'll calculate your income
up to forty thousand a year! With an income
of forty thousand a year, you grudge three and
sixpence. Well then, I'll tell you my opinion.
I so despise the threepence, that I'd sooner
take three shillings. There. For three shillings,
three shillings, three shillings! Gone.
Hand 'em over to the lucky man."

As there had been no bid at all, everybody
looked about and grinned at everybody, while I
touched little Sophy's face and asked her if
she felt faint or giddy. "Not very, father. It
will soon be over." Then turning from the
pretty patient eyes, which were opened now,
and seeing nothing but grins across my lighted
grease-pot, I went on again in my Cheap Jack
style. "Where's the butcher?" (My sorrowful
eye had just caught sight of a fat young
butcher on the outside of the crowd.) She
says the good luck is the butcher's. "Where
is he?" Everybody handed on the blushing
butcher to the front, and there was a roar, and
the butcher felt himself obliged to put his
hand in his pocket and take the lot. The party
so picked out, in general does feel obliged to
take the lot—good four times out of six. Then
we had another lot the counterpart of that one,
and sold it sixpence cheaper, which is always
wery much enjoyed. Then we had the spectacles.
It ain't a special profitable lot, but I put 'em on,
and I see what the Chancellor of the Exchequer
is going to take off the taxes, and I see what the
sweetheart of the young woman in the shawl is
doing at home, and I see what the Bishops has
got for dinner, and a deal more that seldom fails
to fetch 'em up in their spirits; and the better
their spirits, the better their bids. Then we
had the ladies' lot—the teapot, tea-caddy, glass
sugar basin, half a dozen spoons, and caudle-cup—
and all the time I was making similar
excuses to give a look or two and say a word
or two to my poor child. It was while the
second ladies' lot was holding 'em enchained that
I felt her lift herself a little on my shoulder, to
look across the dark street. "What troubles
you, darling?" "Nothing troubles me, father.
I am not at all troubled. But don't I
see a pretty churchyard over there?" "Yes,
my dear." "Kiss me twice, dear father, and
lay me down to rest upon that churchyard
grass so soft and green." I staggered back into
the cart with her head dropped on my shoulder,
and I says to her mother, "Quick. Shut the
door! Don't let those laughing people see!"
"What's the matter?" she cries. "O, woman,
woman," I tells her, "you'll never catch my
little Sophy by her hair again, for she has
flown away from you!"

Maybe those were harder words than I
meant 'em, but from that time forth my wife
took to brooding, and would sit in the cart or
walk beside it, hours at a stretch, with her arms
crossed and her eyes looking on the ground.
When her furies took her (which was rather
seldomer than before) they took her in a new
way, and she banged herself about to that extent
that I was forced to hold her. She got
none the better for a little drink now and then,
and through some years I used to wonder as
I plodded along at the old horse's head whether
there was many carts upon the road that
held so much dreariness as mine, for all my
being looked up to as the King of the Cheap
Jacks. So sad our lives went on till one
summer evening, when as we were coming
into Exeter out of the further West of England,
we saw a woman beating a child in a
cruel manner, who screamed, "Don't beat me!
O mother, mother, mother!" Then my wife
stopped her ears and ran away like a wild
thing, and next day she was found in the river.

Me and my dog were all the company left in
the cart now, and the dog learned to give a
short bark when they wouldn't bid, and to give
another and a nod of his head when I asked him:
"Who said half-a-crown? Are you the
gentleman, sir, that offered half-a-crown?" He
attained to an immense heighth of popularity,
and I shall always believe taught himself entirely
out of his own head to growl at any person in
the crowd that bid as low as sixpence. But he
got to be well on in years, and one night when
I was conwulsing York with the spectacles, he
took a conwulsion on his own account upon the
very footboard by me, and it finished him.