"My friends!" cried I, stepping into the centre of the wagon, "I am
going with you to the camp-meeting at Stamford."

"But in what capacity?" asked the old showman, after a moment's
silence. "All of us here can get our bread in some creditable way.
Every honest man should have his livelihood. You, sir, as I take it,
are a mere strolling gentleman."

I proceeded to inform the company, that, when Nature gave me a
propensity to their way of life, she had not left me altogether
destitute of qualifications for it; though I could not deny that my
talent was less respectable, and might be less profitable, than the
meanest of theirs. My design, in short, was to imitate the
storytellers of whom Oriental travellers have told us, and become an
itinerant novelist, reciting my own extemporaneous fictions to such
audiences as I could collect.

"Either this," said I, "is my vocation, or I have been born in vain."

The fortune-teller, with a sly wink to the company, proposed to take
me as an apprentice to one or other of his professions, either of
which, undoubtedly, would have given full scope to whatever inventive
talent I might possess. The bibliopolist spoke a few words in
opposition to my plan, influenced partly, I suspect, by the jealousy
of authorship, and partly by an apprehension that the _viva voce_
practice would become general among novelists, to the infinite
detriment of the book-trade. Dreading a rejection, I solicited the
interest of the merry damsel.