nothing to raise a blush in the cheek of youth or
shock the most fastidious." Mim swearing most
horrible and terrific in a pink calico pay-place,
at the slackness of the public. Serious hand-bill
in the shops, importing that it was all but
impossible to come to a right understanding of
the history of David, without seeing Pickleson.

I went to the Auction Room in question, and
I found it entirely empty of everything but
echoes and mouldiness, with the single exception
of Pickleson on a piece of red drugget.
This suited my purpose, as I wanted a private
and confidential word with him, which was:
"Pickleson. Owing much happiness to you, I
put you in my will for a fypunnote; but, to save
trouble here's fourpunten down, which may
equally suit your views, and let us so conclude
the transaction." Pickleson, who up to that
remark had had the dejected appearance of a
long Roman rushlight that couldn't anyhow get
lighted, brightened up at his top extremity and
made his acknowledgments in a way which (for
him) was parliamentary eloquence. He likewise
did add, that, having ceased to draw as a
Roman, Mim had made proposals for his going
in as a conwerted Indian Giant worked upon by
The Dairyman's Daughter. This, Pickleson,
having no acquaintance with the tract named
after that young woman, and not being willing
to couple gag with his serious views, had
declined to do, thereby leading to words and the
total stoppage of the unfortunate young man's
beer. All of which, during the whole of the
interview, was confirmed by the ferocious growling
of Mim down below in the pay-place, which
shook the giant like a leaf.

But what was to the present point in the
remarks of the travelling giant otherwise Pickleson,
was this: "Doctor Marigold"—I give his
words without a hope of conweying their
feebleness—"who is the strange young man that
hangs about your carts?"—"The strange young
man?" I gives him back, thinking that he meant
her, and his languid circulation had dropped a
syllable. "Doctor," he returns, with a pathos
calculated to draw a tear from even a manly
eye, "I am weak, but not so weak yet as that
I don't know my words. I repeat them, Doctor.
The strange young man." It then appeared
that Pickleson being forced to stretch his legs
(not that they wanted it) only at times when he
couldn't be seen for nothing, to wit in the dead
of the night and towards daybreak, had twice
seen hanging about my carts, in that same town
of Lancaster where I had been only two nights,
this same unknown young man.

It put me rather out of sorts. What it meant
as to particulars I no more foreboded then, than
you forebode now, but it put me rather out of
sorts. Howsoever, I made light of it to Pickleson,
and I took leave of Pickleson advising him
to spend his legacy in getting up his stamina,
and to continue to stand by his religion.
Towards morning I kept a look-out for the strange
young man, and what was more—I saw the
strange young man. He was well dressed and
well looking. He loitered very nigh my carts,
watching them like as if he was taking care of
them, and soon after daybreak turned and went
away. I sent a hail after him, but he never started
or looked round, or took the smallest notice.

We left Lancaster within an hour or two, on
our way towards Carlisle. Next morning at
daybreak, I looked out again for the strange
young man. I did not see him. But next
morning I looked out again, and there he was
once more. I sent another hail after him, but
as before he gave not the slightest sign of being
anyways disturbed. This put a thought into
my head. Acting on it, I watched him in
different manners and at different times not
necessary to enter into, till I found that this
strange young man was deaf and dumb.

The discovery turned me over, because I knew
that a part of that establishment where she had
been, was allotted to young men (some of them
well off), and I thought to myself "If she
favours him, where am I, and where is all that
I have worked and planned for?" Hoping—I
must confess to the selfishness—that she might
not favour him. I set myself to find out. At last
I was by accident present at a meeting between
them in the open air, looking on leaning behind
a fir-tree without their knowing of it. It was
a moving meeting for all the three parties concerned.
I knew every syllable that passed
between them, as well as they did. I listened
with my eyes, which had come to be as quick
and true with deaf and dumb conversation, as
my ears with the talk of people that can speak.
He was a going out to China as clerk in
a merchant's house, which his father had been
before him. He was in circumstances to keep
a wife, and he wanted her to marry him and go
along with him. She persisted, no. He asked
if she didn't love him? Yes, she loved him
dearly, dearly, but she could never disappoint
her beloved good noble generous and I
don't-know-what-all father (meaning me, the Cheap
Jack in the sleeved waistcoat), and she would
stay with him, Heaven bless him, though it was
to break her heart! Then she cried most bitterly,
and that made up my mind.

While my mind had been in an unsettled state
about her favouring this young man, I had felt
that unreasonable towards Pickleson, that it was
well for him he had got his legacy down.
For I often thought "If it hadn't been for this
same weak-minded giant, I might never have
come to trouble my head and wex my soul about
the young man." But, once that I knew she
loved him—once that I had seen her weep for
him—it was a different thing. I made it right in
my mind with Pickleson on the spot, and I shook
myself together to do what was right by all.

She had left the young man by that time (for
it took a few minutes to get me thoroughly well
shook together), and the young man was leaning
against another of the fir-trees—of which there
was a cluster—with his face upon his arm. I
touched him on the back. Looking up and
seeing me, he says, in our deaf and dumb talk:
"Do not be angry."

"I am not angry, good boy. I am your friend.
Come with me."

I left him at the foot of the steps of the