of walnuts, or an apple as red-checked as himself. There are no
words as to price, that being as well known to the buyer as to the
seller. The old apple-dealer never speaks an unnecessary word not
that he is sullen and morose; but there is none of the cheeriness
and briskness in him that stirs up people to talk.

Not seldom he is greeted by some old neighbor, a man well to do in
the world, who makes a civil, patronizing observation about the
weather; and then, by way of performing a charitable deed, begins to
chaffer for an apple. Our friend presumes not on any past
acquaintance; he makes the briefest possible response to all general
remarks, and shrinks quietly into himself again. After every
diminution of his stock he takes care to produce from the basket
another cake, another stick of candy, another apple, or another
measure of walnuts, to supply the place of the article sold. Two or
three attempts--or, perchance, half a dozen--are requisite before
the board can be rearranged to his satisfaction. If he have received
a silver coin, he waits till the purchaser is out of sight, then
examines it closely, and tries to bend it with his finger and thumb:
finally he puts it into his waistcoat-pocket with seemingly a gentle
sigh. This sigh, so faint as to be hardly perceptible, and not
expressive of any definite emotion, is the accompaniment and
conclusion of all his actions. It is the symbol of the chillness and
torpid melancholy of his old age, which only make themselves felt
sensibly when his repose is slightly disturbed.

Our man of gingerbread and apples is not a specimen of the "needy
man who has seen better days." Doubtless there have been better and
brighter days in the faroff time of his youth; but none with so much
sunshine of prosperity in them that the chill, the depression, the