'I have got myself to believe it, somehow,' said Dot.

'After a hard struggle, I suppose?'

'Very.'

Tackleton the Toy-merchant, pretty generally known as Gruff and
Tackleton--for that was the firm, though Gruff had been bought out
long ago; only leaving his name, and as some said his nature,
according to its Dictionary meaning, in the business--Tackleton the
Toy-merchant, was a man whose vocation had been quite misunderstood
by his Parents and Guardians. If they had made him a Money Lender,
or a sharp Attorney, or a Sheriff's Officer, or a Broker, he might
have sown his discontented oats in his youth, and, after having had
the full run of himself in ill-natured transactions, might have
turned out amiable, at last, for the sake of a little freshness and
novelty. But, cramped and chafing in the peaceable pursuit of toy-
making, he was a domestic Ogre, who had been living on children all
his life, and was their implacable enemy. He despised all toys;
wouldn't have bought one for the world; delighted, in his malice,
to insinuate grim expressions into the faces of brown-paper farmers
who drove pigs to market, bellmen who advertised lost lawyers'
consciences, movable old ladies who darned stockings or carved
pies; and other like samples of his stock in trade. In appalling
masks; hideous, hairy, red-eyed Jacks in Boxes; Vampire Kites;
demoniacal Tumblers who wouldn't lie down, and were perpetually
flying forward, to stare infants out of countenance; his soul
perfectly revelled. They were his only relief, and safety-valve.
He was great in such inventions. Anything suggestive of a Pony-
nightmare was delicious to him. He had even lost money (and he