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Doctor Marigold ..................................................................................................................................................1

Charles Dickens.......................................................................................................................................1

I am a Cheap Jack, and my own father's name was Willum Marigold. It was in his lifetime supposed by some

that his name was William, but my own father always consistently said, No, it was Willum. On which point I

content myself with looking at the argument this way: If a man is not allowed to know his own name in a free

country, how much is he allowed to know in a land of slavery? As to looking at the argument through the

medium of the Register, Willum Marigold come into the world before Registers come up much,and went

out of it too. They wouldn't have been greatly in his line neither, if they had chanced to come up before him.

I was born on the Queen's highway, but it was the King's at that time. A doctor was fetched to my own

mother by my own father, when it took place on a common; and in consequence of his being a very kind

gentleman, and accepting no fee but a teatray, I was named Doctor, out of gratitude and compliment to him.

I am at present a middleaged man of a broadish build, in cords, leggings, and a sleeved waistcoat the strings

of which is always gone behind. Repair them how you will, they go like fiddlestrings. You have been to the

theatre, and you have seen one of the wiolin players screw up his wiolin, after listening to it as if it had been

whispering the secret to him that it feared it was out of order, and then you have heard it snap. That's as

exactly similar to my waistcoat as a waistcoat and a wiolin can be like one another.

I am partial to a white hat, and I like a shawl round my neck wore loose and easy. Sitting down is my

favourite posture. If I have a taste in point of personal jewelry, it is motherofpearl buttons. There you have

The doctor having accepted a teatray, you'll guess that my father was a Cheap Jack before me. You are

right. He was. It was a pretty tray. It represented a large lady going along a serpentining uphill gravelwalk,

to attend a little church. Two swans had likewise come astray with the same intentions. When I call her a

large lady, I don't mean in point of breadth, for there she fell below my views, but she more than made it up

I often saw that tray, after I was the innocently smiling cause (or more likely screeching one) of the doctor's

standing it up on a table against the wall in his consultingroom. Whenever my own father and mother were

in that part of the country, I used to put my head (I have heard my own mother say it was flaxen curls at that

time, though you wouldn't know an old hearthbroom from it now till you come to the handle, and found it

wasn't me) in at the doctor's door, and the doctor was always glad to see me, and said, "Aha, my brother

You can't go on for ever, you'll find, nor yet could my father nor yet my mother. If you don't go off as a

whole when you are about due, you're liable to go off in part, and two to one your head's the part. Gradually

my father went off his, and my mother went off hers. It was in a harmless way, but it put out the family where

I boarded them. The old couple, though retired, got to be wholly and solely devoted to the Cheap Jack

business, and were always selling the family off. Whenever the cloth was laid for dinner, my father began

rattling the plates and dishes, as we do in our line when we put up crockery for a bid, only he had lost the

trick of it, and mostly let 'em drop and broke 'em. As the old lady had been used to sit in the cart, and hand

the articles out one by one to the old gentleman on the footboard to sell, just in the same way she handed him

every item of the family's property, and they disposed of it in their own imaginations from morning to night.

At last the old gentleman, lying bedridden in the same room with the old lady, cries out in the old patter,

fluent, after having been silent for two days and nights: "Now here, my jolly companions every one,which

the Nightingale club in a village was held, At the sign of the Cabbage and Shears, Where the singers no doubt

would have greatly excelled, But for want of taste, voices and ears,now, here, my jolly companions, every

one, is a working model of a usedup old Cheap Jack, without a tooth in his head, and with a pain in every

bone: so like life that it would be just as good if it wasn't better, just as bad if it wasn't worse, and just as new

if it wasn't worn out. Bid for the working model of the old Cheap Jack, who has drunk more gunpowdertea

with the ladies in his time than would blow the lid off a washerwoman's copper, and carry it as many

thousands of miles higher than the moon as naught nix naught, divided by the national debt, carry nothing to

the poorrates, three under, and two over. Now, my hearts of oak and men of straw, what do you say for the

lot? Two shillings, a shilling, tenpence, eightpence, sixpence, fourpence. Twopence? Who said twopence?

The gentleman in the scarecrow's hat? I am ashamed of the gentleman in the scarecrow's hat. I really am

ashamed of him for his want of public spirit. Now I'll tell you what I'll do with you. Come! I'll throw you in a

working model of a old woman that was married to the old Cheap Jack so long ago that upon my word and

honour it took place in Noah's Ark, before the Unicorn could get in to forbid the banns by blowing a tune

upon his horn. There now! Come! What do you say for both? I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I don't bear

you malice for being so backward. Here! If you make me a bid that'll only reflect a little credit on your town,

I'll throw you in a warmingpan for nothing, and lend you a toastingfork for life. Now come; what do you

say after that splendid offer? Say two pound, say thirty shillings, say a pound, say ten shillings, say five, say

two and six. You don't say even two and six? You say two and three? No. You shan't have the lot for two and

three. I'd sooner give it to you, if you was goodlooking enough. Here! Missis! Chuck the old man and

woman into the cart, put the horse to, and drive 'em away and bury 'em!" Such were the last words of Willum

Marigold, my own father, and they were carried out, by him and by his wife, my own mother, on one and the

My father had been a lovely one in his time at the Cheap Jack work, as his dying observations went to prove.

But I top him. I don't say it because it's myself, but because it has been universally acknowledged by all that

has had the means of comparison. I have worked at it. I have measured myself against other public

speakers,Members of Parliament, Platforms, Pulpits, Counsel learned in the law,and where I have found

'em good, I have took a bit of imagination from 'em, and where I have found 'em bad, I have let 'em alone.

Now I'll tell you what. I mean to go down into my grave declaring that of all the callings ill used in Great

Britain, the Cheap Jack calling is the worst used. Why ain't we a profession? Why ain't we endowed with

privileges? Why are we forced to take out a hawker's license, when no such thing is expected of the political

hawkers? Where's the difference betwixt us? Except that we are Cheap Jacks and they are Dear Jacks, I don't

For look here! Say it's election time. I am on the footboard of my cart in the marketplace, on a Saturday

night. I put up a general miscellaneous lot. I say: "Now here, my free and independent woters, I'm a going to

give you such a chance as you never had in all your born days, nor yet the days preceding. Now I'll show you

what I am a going to do with you. Here's a pair of razors that'll shave you closer than the Board of Guardians;

here's a flatiron worth its weight in gold; here's a fryingpan artificially flavoured with essence of

beefsteaks to that degree that you've only got for the rest of your lives to fry bread and dripping in it and there

you are replete with animal food; here's a genuine chronometer watch in such a solid silver case that you may

knock at the door with it when you come home late from a social meeting, and rouse your wife and family,

and save up your knocker for the postman; and here's halfa dozen dinner plates that you may play the

cymbals with to charm baby when it's fractious. Stop! I'll throw in another article, and I'll give you that, and

it's a rollingpin; and if the baby can only get it well into its mouth when its teeth is coming and rub the gums

once with it, they'll come through double, in a fit of laughter equal to being tickled. Stop again! I'll throw you

in another article, because I don't like the looks of you, for you haven't the appearance of buyers unless I lose

by you, and because I'd rather lose than not take money tonight, and that's a lookingglass in which you

may see how ugly you look when you don't bid. What do you say now? Come! Do you say a pound? Not you,

for you haven't got it. Do you say ten shillings? Not you, for you owe more to the tallyman. Well then, I'll tell

you what I'll do with you. I'll heap 'em all on the footboard of the cart,there they are! razors, flat watch,

dinner plates, rollingpin, and away for four shillings, and I'll give you sixpence for your trouble!" This is

me, the Cheap Jack. But on the Monday morning, in the same marketplace, comes the Dear Jack on the

hustingsHIS cartand, what does HE say? "Now my free and independent woters, I am a going to give

you such a chance" (he begins just like me) "as you never had in all your born days, and that's the chance of

sending Myself to Parliament. Now I'll tell you what I am a going to do for you. Here's the interests of this

magnificent town promoted above all the rest of the civilised and uncivilised earth. Here's your railways

carried, and your neighbours' railways jockeyed. Here's all your sons in the Postoffice. Here's Britannia

smiling on you. Here's the eyes of Europe on you. Here's uniwersal prosperity for you, repletion of animal

food, golden cornfields, gladsome homesteads, and rounds of applause from your own hearts, all in one lot,

and that's myself. Will you take me as I stand? You won't? Well, then, I'll tell you what I'll do with you.

Come now! I'll throw you in anything you ask for. There! Churchrates, abolition of more malt tax, no malt

tax, universal education to the highest mark, or uniwersal ignorance to the lowest, total abolition of flogging

in the army or a dozen for every private once a month all round, Wrongs of Men or Rights of Womenonly

say which it shall be, take 'em or leave 'em, and I'm of your opinion altogether, and the lot's your own on your

own terms. There! You won't take it yet! Well, then, I'll tell you what I'll do with you. Come! You ARE such

free and independent woters, and I am so proud of you,you ARE such a noble and enlightened

constituency, and I AM so ambitious of the honour and dignity of being your member, which is by far the

highest level to which the wings of the human mind can soar,that I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I'll

throw you in all the publichouses in your magnificent town for nothing. Will that content you? It won't?

You won't take the lot yet? Well, then, before I put the horse in and drive away, and make the offer to the

next most magnificent town that can be discovered, I'll tell you what I'll do. Take the lot, and I'll drop two

thousand pound in the streets of your magnificent town for them to pick up that can. Not enough? Now look

here. This is the very furthest that I'm a going to. I'll make it two thousand five hundred. And still you won't?

Here, missis! Put the horseno, stop half a moment, I shouldn't like to turn my back upon you neither for a

trifle, I'll make it two thousand seven hundred and fifty pound. There! Take the lot on your own terms, and

I'll count out two thousand seven hundred and fifty pound on the foot board of the cart, to be dropped in the

streets of your magnificent town for them to pick up that can. What do you say? Come now! You won't do

better, and you may do worse. You take it? Hooray! Sold again, and got the seat!"

These Dear Jacks soap the people shameful, but we Cheap Jacks don't. We tell 'em the truth about themselves

to their faces, and scorn to court 'em. As to wenturesomeness in the way of puffing up the lots, the Dear Jacks

beat us hollow. It is considered in the Cheap Jack calling, that better patter can be made out of a gun than any

article we put up from the cart, except a pair of spectacles. I often hold forth about a gun for a quarter of an

hour, and feel as if I need never leave off. But when I tell 'em what the gun can do, and what the gun has

brought down, I never go half so far as the Dear Jacks do when they make speeches in praise of THEIR

gunstheir great guns that set 'em on to do it. Besides, I'm in business for myself: I ain't sent down into the

marketplace to order, as they are. Besides, again, my guns don't know what I say in their laudation, and their

guns do, and the whole concern of 'em have reason to be sick and ashamed all round. These are some of my

arguments for declaring that the Cheap Jack calling is treated ill in Great Britain, and for turning warm when

I think of the other Jacks in question setting themselves up to pretend to look down upon it.

I courted my wife from the footboard of the cart. I did indeed. She was a Suffolk young woman, and it was in

Ipswich marketplace right opposite the cornchandler's shop. I had noticed her up at a window last Saturday

that was, appreciating highly. I had took to her, and I had said to myself, "If not already disposed of, I'll have

that lot." Next Saturday that come, I pitched the cart on the same pitch, and I was in very high feather indeed,

keeping 'em laughing the whole of the time, and getting off the goods briskly. At last I took out of my

waistcoatpocket a small lot wrapped in soft paper, and I put it this way (looking up at the window where she

was). "Now here, my blooming English maidens, is an article, the last article of the present evening's sale,

which I offer to only you, the lovely Suffolk Dumplings biling over with beauty, and I won't take a bid of a

thousand pounds for from any man alive. Now what is it? Why, I'll tell you what it is. It's made of fine gold,

and it's not broke, though there's a hole in the middle of it, and it's stronger than any fetter that ever was

forged, though it's smaller than any finger in my set of ten. Why ten? Because, when my parents made over

my property to me, I tell you true, there was twelve sheets, twelve towels, twelve tablecloths, twelve knives,

twelve forks, twelve tablespoons, and twelve teaspoons, but my set of fingers was two short of a dozen, and

could never since be matched. Now what else is it? Come, I'll tell you. It's a hoop of solid gold, wrapped in a

silver curlpaper, that I myself took off the shining locks of the ever beautiful old lady in Threadneedle

Street, London city; I wouldn't tell you so if I hadn't the paper to show, or you mightn't believe it even of me.

Now what else is it? It's a mantrap and a handcuff, the parish stocks and a leglock, all in gold and all in

one. Now what else is it? It's a wedding ring. Now I'll tell you what I'm a going to do with it. I'm not a going

to offer this lot for money; but I mean to give it to the next of you beauties that laughs, and I'll pay her a visit

tomorrow morning at exactly half after nine o'clock as the chimes go, and I'll take her out for a walk to put

up the banns." She laughed, and got the ring handed up to her. When I called in the morning, she says, "O

dear! It's never you, and you never mean it?" "It's ever me," says I, "and I am ever yours, and I ever mean it."

So we got married, after being put up three timeswhich, by the bye, is quite in the Cheap Jack way again,

She wasn't a bad wife, but she had a temper. If she could have parted with that one article at a sacrifice, I

wouldn't have swopped her away in exchange for any other woman in England. Not that I ever did swop her

away, for we lived together till she died, and that was thirteen year. Now, my lords and ladies and gentlefolks

all, I'll let you into a secret, though you won't believe it. Thirteen year of temper in a Palace would try the

worst of you, but thirteen year of temper in a Cart would try the best of you. You are kept so very close to it

in a cart, you see. There's thousands of couples among you getting on like sweet ile upon a whetstone in

houses five and six pairs of stairs high, that would go to the Divorce Court in a cart. Whether the jolting

makes it worse, I don't undertake to decide; but in a cart it does come home to you, and stick to you.

We might have had such a pleasant life! A roomy cart, with the large goods hung outside, and the bed slung

underneath it when on the road, an iron pot and a kettle, a fireplace for the cold weather, a chimney for the

smoke, a hangingshelf and a cupboard, a dog and a horse. What more do you want? You draw off upon a bit

of turf in a green lane or by the roadside, you hobble your old horse and turn him grazing, you light your fire

upon the ashes of the last visitors, you cook your stew, and you wouldn't call the Emperor of France your

father. But have a temper in the cart, flinging language and the hardest goods in stock at you, and where are

My dog knew as well when she was on the turn as I did. Before she broke out, he would give a howl, and

bolt. How he knew it, was a mystery to me; but the sure and certain knowledge of it would wake him up out

of his soundest sleep, and he would give a howl, and bolt. At such times I wished I was him.

The worst of it was, we had a daughter born to us, and I love children with all my heart. When she was in her

furies she beat the child. This got to be so shocking, as the child got to be four or five year old, that I have

many a time gone on with my whip over my shoulder, at the old horse's head, sobbing and crying worse than

ever little Sophy did. For how could I prevent it? Such a thing is not to be tried with such a temperin a

cartwithout coming to a fight. It's in the natural size and formation of a cart to bring it to a fight. And then

the poor child got worse terrified than before, as well as worse hurt generally, and her mother made

complaints to the next people we lighted on, and the word went round, "Here's a wretch of a Cheap Jack been

Little Sophy was such a brave child! She grew to be quite devoted to her poor father, though he could do so

little to help her. She had a wonderful quantity of shining dark hair, all curling natural about her. It is quite

astonishing to me now, that I didn't go tearing mad when I used to see her run from her mother before the

cart, and her mother catch her by this hair, and pull her down by it, and beat her.

"Don't you mind next time, father dear," she would whisper to me, with her little face still flushed, and her

bright eyes still wet; "if I don't cry out, you may know I am not much hurt. And even if I do cry out, it will

only be to get mother to let go and leave off." What I have seen the little spirit bearfor mewithout crying

Yet in other respects her mother took great care of her. Her clothes were always clean and neat, and her

mother was never tired of working at 'em. Such is the inconsistency in things. Our being down in the marsh

country in unhealthy weather, I consider the cause of Sophy's taking bad low fever; but however she took it,

once she got it she turned away from her mother for evermore, and nothing would persuade her to be touched

by her mother's hand. She would shiver and say, "No, no, no," when it was offered at, and would hide her

The Cheap Jack business had been worse than ever I had known it, what with one thing and what with

another (and not least with railroads, which will cut it all to pieces, I expect, at last), and I was run dry of

money. For which reason, one night at that period of little Sophy's being so bad, either we must have come to

I couldn't get the dear child to lie down or leave go of me, and indeed I hadn't the heart to try, so I stepped out

on the footboard with her holding round my neck. They all set up a laugh when they see us, and one

chuckleheaded Joskin (that I hated for it) made the bidding, "Tuppence for her!"

"Now, you country boobies," says I, feeling as if my heart was a heavy weight at the end of a broken sashline,

"I give you notice that I am a going to charm the money out of your pockets, and to give you so much more

than your money's worth that you'll only persuade yourselves to draw your Saturday night's wages ever again

arterwards by the hopes of meeting me to lay 'em out with, which you never will, and why not? Because I've

made my fortunes by selling my goods on a large scale for seventyfive per cent. less than I give for 'em, and

I am consequently to be elevated to the House of Peers next week, by the title of the Duke of Cheap and

Markis Jackaloorul. Now let's know what you want tonight, and you shall have it. But first of all, shall I tell

you why I have got this little girl round my neck? You don't want to know? Then you shall. She belongs to

the Fairies. She's a fortuneteller. She can tell me all about you in a whisper, and can put me up to whether

you're 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 wellknown 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.") "O! This little fortuneteller says it's a

memorandum book you want. Then why didn't you mention it? Here it is. Look at it. Two hundred superfine

hotpressed wirewove pagesif you don't believe me, count 'emready ruled for your expenses, an

everlastingly pointed pencil to put 'em down with, a doublebladed penknife to scratch 'em out with, a book

of printed tables to calculate your income with, and a campstool 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 pitchdark 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 fortuneteller knows already." (Then making believe to whisper, I kissed her,and

she kissed me.) "Why, she says you are 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

greasepot, 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 lotgood 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' lotthe teapot, tea caddy, glass sugarbasin,

halfadozen spoons, and caudlecupand 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 farther 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

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 height 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.

Being naturally of a tender turn, I had dreadful lonely feelings on me arter this. I conquered 'em at selling

times, having a reputation to keep (not to mention keeping myself), but they got me down in private, and

rolled upon me. That's often the way with us public characters. See us on the footboard, and you'd give pretty

well anything you possess to be us. See us off the footboard, and you'd add a trifle to be off your bargain. It

was under those circumstances that I come acquainted with a giant. I might have been too high to fall into

conversation with him, had it not been for my lonely feelings. For the general rule is, going round the

country, to draw the line at dressing up. When a man can't trust his getting a living to his undisguised

abilities, you consider him below your sort. And this giant when on view figured as a Roman.

He was a languid young man, which I attribute to the distance betwixt his extremities. He had a little head

and less in it, he had weak eyes and weak knees, and altogether you couldn't look at him without feeling that

there was greatly too much of him both for his joints and his mind. But he was an amiable though timid

young man (his mother let him out, and spent the money), and we come acquainted when he was walking to

ease the horse betwixt two fairs. He was called Rinaldo di Velasco, his name being Pickleson.

This giant, otherwise Pickleson, mentioned to me under the seal of confidence that, beyond his being a

burden to himself, his life was made a burden to him by the cruelty of his master towards a step daughter

who was deaf and dumb. Her mother was dead, and she had no living soul to take her part, and was used most

hard. She travelled with his master's caravan only because there was nowhere to leave her, and this giant,

otherwise Pickleson, did go so far as to believe that his master often tried to lose her. He was such a very

languid young man, that I don't know how long it didn't take him to get this story out, but it passed through

When I heard this account from the giant, otherwise Pickleson, and likewise that the poor girl had beautiful

long dark hair, and was often pulled down by it and beaten, I couldn't see the giant through what stood in my

eyes. Having wiped 'em, I give him sixpence (for he was kept as short as he was long), and he laid it out in

two threepenn'orths of ginandwater, which so brisked him up, that he sang the Favourite Comic of

Shivery Shakey, ain't it cold?a popular effect which his master had tried every other means to get out of

His master's name was Mim, a wery hoarse man, and I knew him to speak to. I went to that Fair as a mere

civilian, leaving the cart outside the town, and I looked about the back of the Vans while the performing was

going on, and at last, sitting dozing against a muddy cartwheel, I come upon the poor girl who was deaf and

dumb. At the first look I might almost have judged that she had escaped from the Wild Beast Show; but at the

second I thought better of her, and thought that if she was more cared for and more kindly used she would be

like my child. She was just the same age that my own daughter would have been, if her pretty head had not

To cut it short, I spoke confidential to Mim while he was beating the gong outside betwixt two lots of

Pickleson's publics, and I put it to him, "She lies heavy on your own hands; what'll you take for her?" Mim

was a most ferocious swearer. Suppressing that part of his reply which was much the longest part, his reply

was, "A pair of braces." "Now I'll tell you," says I, "what I'm a going to do with you. I'm a going to fetch you

halfadozen pair of the primest braces in the cart, and then to take her away with me." Says Mim (again

ferocious), "I'll believe it when I've got the goods, and no sooner." I made all the haste I could, lest he should

think twice of it, and the bargain was completed, which Pickleson he was thereby so relieved in his mind that

he come out at his little back door, longways like a serpent, and give us Shivery Shakey in a whisper among

It was happy days for both of us when Sophy and me began to travel in the cart. I at once give her the name

of Sophy, to put her ever towards me in the attitude of my own daughter. We soon made out to begin to

understand one another, through the goodness of the Heavens, when she knowed that I meant true and kind

by her. In a very little time she was wonderful fond of me. You have no idea what it is to have anybody

wonderful fond of you, unless you have been got down and rolled upon by the lonely feelings that I have

You'd have laughedor the rewerseit's according to your dispositionif you could have seen me trying

to teach Sophy. At first I was helpedyou'd never guess by whatmilestones. I got some large alphabets in

a box, all the letters separate on bits of bone, and saying we was going to WINDSOR, I give her those letters

in that order, and then at every milestone I showed her those same letters in that same order again, and

pointed towards the abode of royalty. Another time I give her CART, and then chalked the same upon the

cart. Another time I give her DOCTOR MARIGOLD, and hung a corresponding inscription outside my

waistcoat. People that met us might stare a bit and laugh, but what did I care, if she caught the idea? She

caught it after long patience and trouble, and then we did begin to get on swimmingly, I believe you! At first

she was a little given to consider me the cart, and the cart the abode of royalty, but that soon wore off.

We had our signs, too, and they was hundreds in number. Sometimes she would sit looking at me and

considering hard how to communicate with me about something fresh,how to ask me what she wanted

explained,and then she was (or I thought she was; what does it signify?) so like my child with those years

added to her, that I halfbelieved it was herself, trying to tell me where she had been to up in the skies, and

what she had seen since that unhappy night when she flied away. She had a pretty face, and now that there

was no one to drag at her bright dark hair, and it was all in order, there was a something touching in her looks

that made the cart most peaceful and most quiet, though not at all melancholy. [N.B. In the Cheap Jack patter,

The way she learnt to understand any look of mine was truly surprising. When I sold of a night, she would sit

in the cart unseen by them outside, and would give a eager look into my eyes when I looked in, and would

hand me straight the precise article or articles I wanted. And then she would clap her hands, and laugh for

joy. And as for me, seeing her so bright, and remembering what she was when I first lighted on her, starved

and beaten and ragged, leaning asleep against the muddy cartwheel, it give me such heart that I gained a

greater heighth of reputation than ever, and I put Pickleson down (by the name of Mim's Travelling Giant

This happiness went on in the cart till she was sixteen year old. By which time I began to feel not satisfied

that I had done my whole duty by her, and to consider that she ought to have better teaching than I could give

her. It drew a many tears on both sides when I commenced explaining my views to her; but what's right is

So I took her hand in mine, and I went with her one day to the Deaf and Dumb Establishment in London, and

when the gentleman come to speak to us, I says to him: "Now I'll tell you what I'll do with you, sir. I am

nothing but a Cheap Jack, but of late years I have laid by for a rainy day notwithstanding. This is my only

daughter (adopted), and you can't produce a deafer nor a dumber. Teach her the most that can be taught her in

the shortest separation that can be named,state the figure for it,and I am game to put the money down. I

won't bate you a single farthing, sir, but I'll put down the money here and now, and I'll thankfully throw you

in a pound to take it. There!" The gentleman smiled, and then, "Well, well," says he, "I must first know what

she has learned already. How do you communicate with her?" Then I showed him, and she wrote in printed

writing many names of things and so forth; and we held some sprightly conversation, Sophy and me, about a

little story in a book which the gentleman showed her, and which she was able to read. "This is most

extraordinary," says the gentleman; "is it possible that you have been her only teacher?" "I have been her only

teacher, sir," I says, "besides herself." "Then," says the gentleman, and more acceptable words was never

spoke to me, "you're a clever fellow, and a good fellow." This he makes known to Sophy, who kisses his

We saw the gentleman four times in all, and when he took down my name and asked how in the world it ever

chanced to be Doctor, it come out that he was own nephew by the sister's side, if you'll believe me, to the

very Doctor that I was called after. This made our footing still easier, and he says to me:

"I want her, sir, to be cut off from the world as little as can be, considering her deprivations, and therefore to

"My good fellow," urges the gentleman, opening his eyes wide, "why I can't do that myself!"

I took his joke, and gave him a laugh (knowing by experience how flat you fall without it), and I mended my

"What do you mean to do with her afterwards?" asks the gentleman, with a sort of a doubtful eye. "To take

"In the cart, sir, but only in the cart. She will live a private life, you understand, in the cart. I should never

think of bringing her infirmities before the public. I wouldn't make a show of her for any money."

"There's another question," says the gentleman, looking towards her,"can she part with you for two years?"

I don't know that it was a harder matter of itself (for the other was hard enough to me), but it was harder to

get over. However, she was pacified to it at last, and the separation betwixt us was settled. How it cut up both

of us when it took place, and when I left her at the door in the dark of an evening, I don't tell. But I know this;

remembering that night, I shall never pass that same establishment without a heartache and a swelling in the

throat; and I couldn't put you up the best of lots in sight of it with my usual spirit,no, not even the gun, nor

the pair of spectacles,for five hundred pound reward from the Secretary of State for the Home Department,

Still, the loneliness that followed in the cart was not the old loneliness, because there was a term put to it,

however long to look forward to; and because I could think, when I was anyways down, that she belonged to

me and I belonged to her. Always planning for her coming back, I bought in a few months' time another cart,

and what do you think I planned to do with it? I'll tell you. I planned to fit it up with shelves and books for

her reading, and to have a seat in it where I could sit and see her read, and think that I had been her first

teacher. 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 readingtable, and here was her

writingdesk, and elsewhere was her books in rows upon rows, picters and no picters, bindings and no

bindings, giltedged 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,

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 newmade 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, flatiron, chronometer watch, dinner plates, rollingpin, and lookingglass, and

shouldn't be offered as a single indiwidual article, like the spectacles or the gun. When I had come to that

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

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

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 'emand I have opened manybut 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 wermilion 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 go and fetch her. Bright cold weather it was, cartchimneys smoking, carts pitched

private on a piece of waste ground over at Wandsworth, where you may see 'em from the Sou'western

"Marigold," says the gentleman, giving his hand hearty, "I am very glad to see you."

"Yet I have my doubts, sir," says I, "if you can be half as glad to see me as I am to see you."

Ah! I should think it was! Grown such a woman, so pretty, so intelligent, so expressive! I knew then that she

must be really like my child, or I could never have known her, standing quiet by the door.

" I feel," says the gentleman, "that it was you who raised her from misery and degradation, and brought her

into communication with her kind. But why do we converse alone together, when we can converse so well

"I am such a rough chap in a sleeved waistcoat, sir," says I, "and she is such a graceful woman, and she

They had got it up together o' purpose to please me! For when I give her the old sign, she rushed to my feet,

and dropped upon her knees, holding up her hands to me with pouring tears of love and joy; and when I took

her hands and lifted her, she clasped me round the neck, and lay there; and I don't know what a fool I didn't

make of myself, until we all three settled down into talking without sound, as if there was a something soft

[A portion is here omitted from the text, having reference to the sketches contributed by other writers; but the

"Now I'll tell you what I am agoing to do with you. I am agoing to offer you the general miscellaneous lot,

her own book, never read by anybody else but me, added to and completed by me after her first reading of it,

eightandforty printed pages, sixandninety columns, Whiting's own work, Beaufort House to wit, thrown

off by the steamingine, best of paper, beautiful green wrapper, folded like clean linen come home from the

clearstarcher's, and so exquisitely stitched that, regarded as a piece of needlework alone, it's better than the

sampler of a seamstress undergoing a Competitive examination for Starvation before the Civil Service

Commissionersand I offer the lot for what? For eight pound? Not so much. For six pound? Less. For four

pound. Why, I hardly expect you to believe me, but that's the sum. Four pound! The stitching alone cost half

as much again. Here's fortyeight original pages, ninetysix original columns, for four pound. You want

more for the money? Take it. Three whole pages of advertisements of thrilling interest thrown in for nothing.

Read 'em and believe 'em. More? My best of wishes for your merry Christmases and your happy New Years,

your long lives and your true prosperities. Worth twenty pound good if they are delivered as I send them.

Remember! Here's a final prescription added, "To be taken for life," which will tell you how the cart broke

down, and where the journey ended. You think Four Pound too much? And still you think so? Come! I'll tell

So every item of my plan was crowned with success. Our reunited life was more than all that we had looked

forward to. Content and joy went with us as the wheels of the two carts went round, and the same stopped

with us when the two carts stopped. I was as pleased and as proud as a PugDog with his muzzle

But I had left something out of my calculations. Now, what had I left out? To help you to guess I'll say, a

figure. Come. Make a guess and guess right. Nought? No. Nine? No. Eight? No. Seven? No. Six? No. Five?

No. Four? No. Three? No. Two? No. One? No. Now I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I'll say it's another sort

of figure altogether. There. Why then, says you, it's a mortal figure. No, nor yet a mortal figure. By such

means you got yourself penned into a corner, and you can't help guessing a IMmortal figure. That's about it.

Yes. It was a immortal figure that I had altogether left out of my Calculations. Neither man's, nor woman's,

but a child's. Girl's or boy's? Boy's. "I, says the sparrow with my bow and arrow." Now you have got it.

We were down at Lancaster, and I had done two nights more than fair average business (though I cannot in

honour recommend them as a quick audience) in the open square there, near the end of the street where Mr.

Sly's King's Arms and Royal Hotel stands. Mim's travelling giant, otherwise Pickleson, happened at the

selfsame time to be trying it on in the town. The genteel lay was adopted with him. No hint of a van. Green

baize alcove leading up to Pickleson in a Auction Room. Printed poster, "Free list suspended, with the

exception of that proud boast of an enlightened country, a free press. Schools admitted by private

arrangement. 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 payplace, at the slackness of the public. Serious handbill in the

shops, importing that it was all but impossible to come to a right understanding of the history of David

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 payplace,

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

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, andwhat was moreI 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

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 selfishnessthat 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 firtree 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 agoing 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 Idon'tknowwhatall 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

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 weakminded 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

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 firtrees,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 deafanddumb talk,

I left him at the foot of the steps of the Library Cart, and I went up alone. She was drying her eyes.

She took up the book of my Prescriptions, and held it up with a forced smile; but seeing me keep still and

I brought her young husband in, and I put her hand in his, and my only farther words to both of them were

these: "Doctor Marigold's last Prescription. To be taken for life." After which I bolted.

When the wedding come off, I mounted a coat (blue, and bright buttons), for the first and last time in all my

days, and I give Sophy away with my own hand. There were only us three and the gentleman who had had

charge of her for those two years. I give the wedding dinner of four in the Library Cart. Pigeonpie, a leg of

pickled pork, a pair of fowls, and suitable garden stuff. The best of drinks. I give them a speech, and the

gentleman give us a speech, and all our jokes told, and the whole went off like a sky rocket. In the course of

the entertainment I explained to Sophy that I should keep the Library Cart as my livingcart when not upon

the road, and that I should keep all her books for her just as they stood, till she come back to claim them. So

she went to China with her young husband, and it was a parting sorrowful and heavy, and I got the boy I had

another service; and so as of old, when my child and wife were gone, I went plodding along alone, with my

Sophy wrote me many letters, and I wrote her many letters. About the end of the first year she sent me one in

an unsteady hand: "Dearest father, not a week ago I had a darling little daughter, but I am so well that they let

me write these words to you. Dearest and best father, I hope my child may not be deaf and dumb, but I do not

yet know." When I wrote back, I hinted the question; but as Sophy never answered that question, I felt it to be

a sad one, and I never repeated it. For a long time our letters were regular, but then they got irregular, through

Sophy's husband being moved to another station, and through my being always on the move. But we were in

Five years, odd months, had gone since Sophy went away. I was still the King of the Cheap Jacks, and at a

greater height of popularity than ever. I had had a firstrate autumn of it, and on the twenty third of

December, one thousand eight hundred and sixtyfour, I found myself at Uxbridge, Middlesex, clean sold

out. So I jogged up to London with the old horse, light and easy, to have my Christmas eve and

Christmasday alone by the fire in the Library Cart, and then to buy a regular new stock of goods all round,

I am a neat hand at cookery, and I'll tell you what I knocked up for my Christmaseve dinner in the Library

Cart. I knocked up a beefsteakpudding for one, with two kidneys, a dozen oysters, and a couple of

mushrooms thrown in. It's a pudding to put a man in good humour with everything, except the two bottom

buttons of his waistcoat. Having relished that pudding and cleared away, I turned the lamp low, and sat down

by the light of the fire, watching it as it shone upon the backs of Sophy's books.

Sophy's books so brought Sophy's self, that I saw her touching face quite plainly, before I dropped off dozing

by the fire. This may be a reason why Sophy, with her deafanddumb child in her arms, seemed to stand

silent by me all through my nap. I was on the road, off the road, in all sorts of places, 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 still she stood silent by me, with her silent child in her arms. Even when I woke with a start, she

seemed to vanish, as if she had stood by me in that very place only a single instant before.

I had started at a real sound, and the sound was on the steps of the cart. It was the light hurried tread of a

child, coming clambering up. That tread of a child had once been so familiar to me, that for half a moment I

But the touch of a real child was laid upon the outer handle of the door, and the handle turned, and the door

opened a little way, and a real child peeped in. A bright little comely girl with large dark eyes.

Looking full at me, the tiny creature took off her mite of a straw hat, and a quantity of dark curls fell about

"Yes, dear grandfather. And I am to ask you whether there was ever any one that I remind you of?"

In a moment Sophy was round my neck, as well as the child, and her husband was awringing my hand with

his face hid, and we all had to shake ourselves together before we could get over it. And when we did begin

to get over it, and I saw the pretty child atalking, pleased and quick and eager and busy, to her mother, in the

signs that I had first taught her mother, the happy and yet pitying tears fell rolling down my face.