only reflect a little credit on your town, I'll throw you in a warming-
pan for nothing, and lend you a toasting-fork 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 good-
looking 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 same day, as I
ought to know, having followed as mourner.

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 see any difference but
what's in our favour.

For look here! Say it's election time. I am on the footboard of my cart
in the market-place, on a Saturday night. I put up a general