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,