Selected Short Fiction Read online

  I often saw that tray, after I was the innocently smiling cause (or more likely screeching one) of the doctor’s standing it up on a table against the wall in his consulting-room. Whenever my own father and mother were in that part of the country, I used to put my head (I have heard my own mother say it was flaxen curls at that time, though you wouldn’t know an old hearth-broom from it now, till you come to the handle and found it wasn’t me) in at the doctor’s door, and the doctor was always glad to see me, and said, ‘Aha, my brother practitioner! Come in, little M.D. How are your inclinations as to sixpence?’

  You can’t go on for ever, you’ll find, nor yet could my father nor yet my mother. If you don’t go off as a whole when you are about due, you’re liable to go off in part and two to one your head’s the part. Gradually my father went off his, and my mother went off hers. It was in a harmless way, but it put out the family where I boarded them. The old couple, though retired, got to be wholly and solely devoted to the Cheap Jack business, and were always selling the family off. Whenever the cloth was laid for dinner, my father began rattling the plates and dishes, as we do in our line when we put up crockery for a bid, only he had lost the trick of it, and mostly let ‘em drop and broke ’em. As the old lady had been used to sit in the cart, and hand the articles out one by one to the old gentleman on the footboard to sell, just in the same way she handed him every item of the family’s property, and they disposed of it in their own imaginations from morning to night. At last the old gentleman, lying bedridden in the same room with the old lady, cries out in the old patter, fluent, after having been silent for two days and nights: ‘Now here, my jolly companions every one- which the Nightingale club in a village was held, At the sign of the CabbageI and Shears, Where the singers no doubt would have greatly excelled, But for want of taste voices and ears - now here, my jolly companions every one, is a working model of a used-up old Cheap Jack, without a tooth in his head, and with a pain in every bone: so like life that it would be just as good if it wasn’t better, just as bad if it wasn’t worse, and just as new if it wasn’t worn out. Bid for the working model of the old Cheap Jack, who has drunk more gunpowder-tea with the ladies in his time than would blow the lid off a washer-woman’s copper, and carry it as many thousands of miles higher than the moon as nought nix nought, divided by the national debt, carry nothing to the poor-rates, three under, and two over. Now my hearts of oak2 and men of straw, what do you say for the lot? Two shillings, a shilling, tenpence, eightpence, sixpence, fourpence. Twopence? Who said twopence? The gentleman in the scare-crow’s hat? I am ashamed of the gentleman in the scarecrow’s hat. I really am ashamed of him for his want of public spirit. Now I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you. Come! I’ll throw you in a working model of a old woman that was married to the old Cheap Jack so long ago, that upon my word and honour it took place in Noah’s Ark, before the Unicorn could get in to forbid the banns by blowing a tune upon his horn. There now! Come! What do you say for both? I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you. I don’t bear you malice for being so backward. Here! If you make me a bid that’ll 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 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 imitation 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 miscellaneous lot. I say: ‘Now here my free and independent woters, I’m a going to give you such a chance as you never had in all your born days, nor yet the days preceding. Now I’ll show you what I am a going to do with you. Here’s a pair of razors that’ll shave you closer than the Board of Guardians,3 here’s a flat-iron worth its weight in gold, here’s a frying-pan artificially flavoured with essence of beefsteaks to that degree that you’ve only got for the rest of your lives to fry bread and dripping in it and there you are replete with animal food, here’s a genuine chronometer watch in such a solid silver case that you may knock at the door with it when you come home late from a social meeting and rouse your wife and family and save up your knocker for the postman, and here’s half a dozen dinner plates that you may play the cymbals with to charm the baby when it’s fractious. Stop! I’ll throw you in another article and I’ll give you that, and it’s a rolling-pin, and if the baby can only get it well into its mouth when its teeth is coming and rub the gums once with it, they’ll come through double, in a fit of laughter equal to being tickled. Stop again! I’ll throw you in another article, because I don’t like the looks of you, for you haven’t the appearance of buyers unless I lose by you, and because I’d rather lose than not take money to-night, and that’s a lookingglass in which you may see how ugly you look when you don’t bid. What do you say now? Come! Do you say a pound? Not you, for you haven’t got it. Do you say ten shillings? Not you, for you owe more to the tallyman. Well then, I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you. I’ll heap ’em all on the footboard of the cart - there they are! razors, flat-iron, frying-pan, chronometer watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and looking-glass - take ‘em all away for four shillings, and I’ll give you sixpence for your trouble!’ This is me, the Cheap Jack. But on the Monday morning, in the same market-place, comes the Dear Jack on the hustings - his cart - and what does he say? ‘Now my free and independent woters, I am going to give you such a chance’ (he begins just like me) ‘as you never had in all your born days, and that’s the chance of sending Myself to Parliament. Now I’ll tell you what I am going to do for you. Here’s the interests of this magnificent town promoted above all the rest of the civilised and uncivilised earth. Here’s your railways carried, and your neighbours’ railways jockeyed. Here’s all your sons in the Post-office. Here’s Britannia smiling on you. Here’s the eyes of Europe on you. Here’s uniwersal prosperity for you, repletion of animal food, golden cornfields, gladsome homesteads, and rounds of applause from your own hearts, all in one lot and that’s myself. Will you take me as I stand? You won’t? Well then, I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you. Come now! I’ll throw you in anything you ask for. There! Church-rates, abolition of church-rates, more malt tax, no malt tax, uniwersal education to the highest mark or uniwersal ignorance to the lowest, total abolition of flogging in the army or a dozen for every private once a month all round. Wrongs of Men or Rights of Women, - only say which it shall be, take ‘em or leave ‘em, and I’m of your opinion altogether, and the lot’s your own on your own terms. There! You won’t take it yet? Well then, I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you. Come! You are such free and independent woters, and I am so proud o
f you - you are such a noble and enlightened constituency, and I am so ambitious of the honour and dignity of being your member, which is by far the highest level to which the wings of the human mind can soar- that I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you. I’ll throw you in all the public-houses in your magnificent town for nothing. Will that content you? It won’t? You won’t take the lot yet? Well then, before I put the horse in and drive away, and make the offer to the next most magnificent town that can be discovered, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Take the lot, and I’ll drop two thousand pounds in the streets of your magnificent town for them to pick up that can. Not enough? Now look here. This is the very furthest that I’m a going to. I’ll make it two thousand five hundred. And still you won’t? Here, missis! Put the horse - no, stop half a moment, I shouldn’t like to turn my back upon you neither for a trifle, I’ll make it two thousand seven hundred and fifty pound. There! Take the lot on your own terms, and I’ll count out two thousand seven hundred and fifty pound on the footboard of the cart, to be dropped in the streets of your magnificent town for them to pick up that can. What do you say? Come now! You won’t do better, and you may do worse. You take it? Hooray! Sold again, and got the seat!’

  These Dear Jacks soap the people shameful, but we Cheap Jacks don’t. We tell ‘em the truth about themselves to their faces, and scorn to court ’em. As to wenturesomeness in the way of puffing up the lots, the Dear Jacks beat us hollow. It is considered in the Cheap Jack calling that better patter can be made out of a gun than any article we put up from the cart, except a pair of spectacles. I often hold forth about a gun for a quarter of an hour, and feel as if I need never leave off. But when I tell ‘em what the gun can do, and what the gun has brought down, I never go half so far as the Dear Jacks do when they make speeches in praise of their guns- their great guns that set ’em on to do it. Besides, I’m in business for myself, I ain’t sent down into the market-place to order, as they are. Besides again, my guns don’t know what I say in their laudation, and their guns do, and the whole concern of ’em have reason to be sick and ashamed all round. These are some of my arguments for declaring that the Cheap Jack calling is treated ill in Great Britain, and for turning warm when I think of the other Jacks in question setting themselves up to pretend to look down upon it.

  I courted my wife from the footboard of the cart. I did indeed. She was a Suffolk young woman, and it was in Ipswich market-place right opposite the corn-chandler’s shop. I had noticed her up at a window last Saturday that was, appreciating highly. I had took to her, and I had said to myself, ‘If not already disposed of, I’ll have that lot.’ Next Saturday that come, I pitched the cart on the same pitch, and I was in very high feather indeed, keeping ‘em laughing the whole of the time and getting off the goods briskly. At last I took out of my waistcoat-pocket, a small lot wrapped in soft paper, and I put it this way (looking up at the window where she was). ‘Now here my blooming English maidens is an article, the last article of the present evening’s sale, which I offer to only you the lovely Suffolk Dumplings biling over with beauty, and I won’t take a bid of a thousand pounds for, from any man alive. Now what is it? Why, I’ll tell you what it is. It’s made of fine gold, and it’s not broke though there’s a hole in the middle of it, and it’s stronger than any fetter that ever was forged, though it’s smaller than any finger in my set of ten. Why ten? Because when my parents made over my property to me, I tell you true, there was twelve sheets, twelve towels, twelve tablecloths, twelve knives, twelve forks, twelve tablespoons, and twelve teaspoons, but my set of fingers was two short of a dozen and could never since be matched. Now what else is it? Come I’ll tell you. It’s a hoop of solid gold, wrapped in a silver curl-paper that I myself took off the shining locks of the ever beautiful old lady in Threadneedle-street,4 London city. I wouldn’t tell you so if I hadn’t the paper to show, or you mightn’t believe it even of me. Now what else is it? It’s a man-trap and a handcuff, the parish stocks and a leg-lock, all in gold and all in one. Now what else is it? It’s a wedding ring. Now I’ll tell you what I’m a-going to do with it. I’m not a-going to offer this lot for money, but I mean to give it to the next of you beauties that laughs, and I’ll pay her a visit to-morrow morning at exactly half after nine o‘clock as the chimes go, and I’ll take her out for a walk to put up the banns.’ She laughed, and got the ring handed up to her. When I called in the morning, she says, ‘Oh dear! It’s never you and you never mean it?’ ‘It’s ever me,’ said I, ‘and I am ever yours, and I ever mean it.’ So we got married, after being put up three times - which, by-the-by, is quite in the Cheap Jack way again, and shows once more how the Cheap Jack customs pervade society.

  She wasn’t a bad wife, but she had a temper. If she could have parted with that one article at a sacrifice, I wouldn’t have swopped her away in exchange for any other woman in England. Not that I ever did swop her away, for we lived together till she died, and that was thirteen year. Now my lords and ladies and gentlefolks all, I’ll let you into a secret, though you won’t believe it. Thirteen year of temper in a Palace would try the worst of you, but thirteen year of temper in a Cart would try the best of you. You are kept so very close to it in a cart, you see. There’s thousands of couples among you, getting on like sweet ile upon a whetstone in houses five and six pairs of stairs high, that would go to the Divorce Court in a cart. Whether the jolting makes it worse, I don’t undertake to decide, but in a cart it does come home to you and stick to you. Wiolence in a cart, is so wiolent, and aggrawation in a cart is so aggrawating.

  We might have had such a pleasant life! A roomy cart, with the large goods hung outside and the bed slung underneath it when on the road, an iron pot and a kettle, a fireplace for the cold weather, a chimney for the smoke, a hanging shelf and a cupboard, a dog, and a horse. What more do you want? You draw off upon a bit of turf in a green lane or by the roadside, you hobble your old horse and turn him grazing, you light your fire, upon the ashes of the last visitors, you cook your stew, and you wouldn’t call the Emperor of France your father. But have a temper in the cart, flinging language and the hardest goods in stock at you, and where are you then? Put a name to your feelings.

  My dog knew as well when she was on the turn as I did. Before she broke out, he would give a howl, and bolt. How he knew it, was a mystery to me, but the sure and certain knowledge of it would wake him up out of his soundest sleep, and he would give a howl, and bolt. At such times I wished I was him.

  The worst of it was, we had a daughter born to us, and I love children with all my heart. When she was in her furies, she beat the child. This got to be so shocking as the child got to be four or five year old, that I have many a time gone on with my whip over my shoulder, at the old horse’s head, sobbing and crying worse than ever little Sophy did. For how could I prevent it? Such a thing is not to be tried with such a temper- in a cart- without coming to a fight. It’s in the natural size and formation of a cart to bring it to a fight. And then the poor child got worse terrified than before, as well as worse hurt generally, and her mother made complaints to the next people we lighted on, and the word went round, ‘Here’s a wretch of a Cheap Jack been a beating his wife.’

  Little Sophy was such a brave child! She grew to be quite devoted to her poor father, though he could do so little to help her. She had a wonderful quantity of shining dark hair, all curling natural about her. It is quite astonishing to me now, that I didn’t go tearing mad when I used to see her run from her mother before the cart, and her mother catch her by this hair, and pull her down by it, and beat her.

  Such a brave child I said she was. Ah! with reason.

  ‘Don’t you mind next time, father dear,’ she would whisper to me, with her little face still flushed, and her bright eyes still wet; ‘if I don’t cry out, you may know I am not much hurt. And even if I do cry out, it will only be to get mother to let go and leave off.’ What I have seen the little spirit bear-for me-without crying out!

  Yet in other respects her mother too
k great care of her. Her clothes were always clean and neat, and her mother was never tired of working at ‘em. Such is the inconsistency in things. Our being down in the marsh country in unhealthy weather, I consider the cause of Sophy’s taking bad low fever; but however she took it, once she got it she turned away from her mother for evermore, and nothing would persuade her to be touched by her mother’s hand. She would shiver and say ‘No, no, no,’ when it was offered at, and would hide her face on my shoulder, and hold me tighter round the neck.

  The Cheap Jack business had been worse than ever I had known it, what with one thing and what with another (and not least what with railroads, which will cut it all to pieces, I expect at last), and I was run dry of money. For which reason, one night at that period of little Sophy’s being so bad, either we must have come to a deadlock for victuals and drink, or I must have pitched the cart as I did.

  I couldn’t get the dear child to lie down or leave go of me, and indeed I hadn’t the heart to try, so I stepped out on the footboard with her holding round my neck. They all set up a laugh when they see us, and one chuckle-headed joskin5 (that I hated for it) made the bidding, ‘tuppence for her!’

  ‘Now, you country boobies,’ says I, feeling as if my heart was a heavy weight at the end of a broken sash-line, ‘I give you notice that I am a going to charm the money out of your pockets, and to give you so much more than your money’s worth that you’ll only persuade yourselves to draw your Saturday night’s wages ever again arterwards, by the hopes of meeting me to lay ’em out with, which you never will, and why not? Because I’ve made my fortune by selling my goods on a large scale for seventy-five per cent less than I give for ‘em, and I am consequently to be elevated to the House of Peers next week, by the title of the Duke of Cheap and Markis Jackaloorul. Now let’s know what you want to-night, and you shall have it. But first of all, shall I tell you why I have got this little girl round my neck? You don’t want to know? Then you shall. She belongs to the Fairies. She’s a fortune-teller. She can tell me all about you in a whisper, and can put me up to whether you’re a-going to buy a lot or leave it. Now do you want a saw? No, she says you don’t, because you’re too clumsy to use one. Else here’s a saw which would be a lifelong blessing to a handy man, at four shillings, at three and six, at three, at two and six, at two, at eighteen-pence. But none of you shall have it at any price, on account of your well-known awkwardness which would make it manslaughter. The same objection applies to this set of three planes which I won’t let you have neither, so don’t bid for‘em. Now I am a-going to ask her what you do want. (Then I whispered, ‘Your head burns so, that I am afraid it hurts you bad, my pet,’ and she answered, without opening her heavy eyes, ‘Just a little, father.’) Oh! This little fortune-teller says it’s a memorandum-book you want. Then why didn’t you mention it? Here it is. Look at it. Two hundred super-fine hot-pressed wire-wove pages - if you don’t believe me, count ’em - ready ruled for your expenses, an everlastingly-pointed pencil to put ‘em down with, a double-bladed penknife to scratch ’em out with, a book of printed tables to calculate your income with, and a camp-stool to sit down upon while you give your mind to it! Stop! And an umbrella to keep the moon off when you give your mind to it on a pitch dark night. Now I won’t ask you how much for the lot, but how little? How little are you thinking of? Don’t be ashamed to mention it, because my fortune-teller knows already. (Then making believe to whisper, I kissed her, and she kissed me.) Why, she says you’re thinking of as little as three and threepence! I couldn’t have believed it, even of you, unless she told me. Three and threepence! And a set of printed tables in the lot that’ll calculate your income up to forty thousand a year! With an income of forty thousand a year, you grudge three and sixpence. Well then, I’ll tell you my opinion. I so despise the threepence, that I’d sooner take three shillings. There. For three shilling, three shillings, three shillings! Gone. Hand ‘em over to the lucky man.’