Not hurrying over the job, I had the fittings
knocked together in contriving ways under my
own inspection, and here was her bed in a berth
with curtains, and there was her reading-table,
and here was her writing-desk, and elsewhere
was her books in rows upon rows, picters and
no picters, bindings and no bindings, gilt-edged
and plain, just as I could pick 'em up for her
in lots up and down the country, North and
South and West and East, Winds liked best
and winds liked least, Here and there and
gone astray, Over the hills and far away. And
when I had got together pretty well as many
books as the cart would neatly hold, a new
scheme come into my head which, as it turned
out, kept my time and attention a good deal
employed and helped me over the two years
stile.

Without being of an awaricious temper, I like
to be the owner of things. I shouldn't wish,
for instance, to go partners with yourself in the
Cheap Jack cart. It's not that I mistrust you,
but that I'd rather know it was mine.
Similarly, very likely you'd rather know it was
yours. Well! A kind of a jealousy began to
creep into my mind when I reflected that all
those books would have been read by other
people long before they was read by her. It
seemed to take away from her being the owner
of 'em like. In this way, the question got into
my head:—Couldn't I have a book new-made
express for her, which she should be the first to
read?

It pleased me, that thought did, and as I
never was a man to let a thought sleep (you
must wake up all the whole family of thoughts
you've got and burn their nightcaps, or you
won't do in the cheap Jack line), I set to
work at it. Considering that I was in the habit
of changing so much about the country, and
that I should have to find out a literary character
here to make a deal with, and another literary
character there to make a deal with, as
opportunities presented, I hit on the plan that
this same book should be a general miscellaneous
lot—like the razors, flat-iron, chronometer
watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and
looking-glass—and shouldn't be offered as a single
indiwidual article like the spectacles or the gun.
When I had come to that conclusion, I come
to another, which shall likewise be yours.

Often had I regretted that she never had
heard me on the footboard, and that she never
could hear me. It ain't that I am vain, but
that you don't like to put your own light under
a bushel. What's the worth of your reputation,
if you can't convey the reason for it to
the person you most wish to value it? Now
I'll put it to you. Is it worth sixpence,
fippence, fourpence, threepence, twopence, a
penny, a halfpenny, a farthing? No, it ain't.
Not worth a farthing. Very well then. My
conclusion was, that I would begin her book
with some account of myself. So that, through
reading a specimen or two of me on the
footboard, she might form an idea of my merits
there. I was aware that I couldn't do myself
justice. A man can't write his eye (at least I
don't know how to), nor yet can a man write his
voice, nor the rate of his talk, nor the quickness
of his action, nor his general spicy way. But
he can write his turns of speech, when he
is a public speaker—and indeed I have
heard that he very often does, before he
speaks 'em.

Well! Having formed that resolution, then
come the question of a name. How did I
hammer that hot iron into shape? This way.
The most difficult explanation I had ever had
with her was, how I come to be called Doctor,
and yet was no Doctor. After all, I felt that I
had failed of getting it correctly into her mind,
with my utmost pains. But trusting to her
improvement in the two years, I thought that I
might trust to her understanding it when she
should come to read it as put down by my own
hand. Then I thought I would try a joke with
her and watch how it took, by which of
itself I might fully judge of her understanding
it. We had first discovered the mistake we had
dropped into, through her having asked me to
prescribe for her when she had supposed me to
be a Doctor in a medical point of view, so
thinks I, "Now, if I give this book the name
of my Prescriptions, and if she catches the idea
that my only Prescriptions are for her amusement
and interest—to make her laugh in a
pleasant way, or to make her cry in a pleasant
way—it will be a delightful proof to both of us
that we have got over our difficulty. It fell
out to absolute perfection. For when she saw
the book, as I had it got up—the printed and
pressed book—lying on her desk in her cart, and
saw the title, DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS,
she looked at me for a moment with astonishment,
then fluttered the leaves, then broke
out a laughing in the charmingest way, then felt
her pulse and shook her head, then turned the
pages pretending to read them most attentive,
then kissed the book to me, and put it to her
bosom with both her hands. I never was better
pleased in all my life!

But let me not anticipate. (I take that expression
out of a lot of romances I bought for her.
I never opened a single one of 'em—and I have
opened many—but I found the romancer saying
"let me not anticipate." Which being so, I
wonder why he did anticipate, or who asked him
to it.) Let me not, I say, anticipate. This same
book took up all my spare time. It was no
play to get the other articles together in the
general miscellaneous lot, but when it come
to my own article! There! I couldn't have
believed the blotting, nor yet the buckling
to at it, nor the patience over it. Which
again is like the footboard. The public have
no idea.

At last it was done, and the two years' time
was gone after all the other time before it, and
where it's all gone to, Who knows? The new cart
was finished—yellow outside, relieved with
wermillion and brass fittings—the old horse was
put in it, a new 'un and a boy being laid on for
the Cheap Jack cart—and I cleaned myself up to