Doctor Marigold | Page 4

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 Cabbage 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 washerwoman's copper, and
carry it as many thousands of miles higher than the moon as naught nix
naught, divided by the national debt, carry nothing to the poor-rates,
three under, and two over. Now, my hearts of oak 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 scarecrow'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 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