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her.' But I says to him, 'Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn't much pickin' o' your feyther an' mother, to look at you.' Not but what I like a bit o' breed myself, but I can't abide to see one cur grinnin' at another.

He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn't a dog as 'ull be caught wi' gingerbread: he'd smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread—he would. Lors, I talk to him by th' hour together, when I'm walking i' lone places, and if I'n done a bit o' mischief, I allays tell him. I'n got no secrets, but what Mumps knows 'em.

If

I think my head's all alive inside like an old cheese, for I'm so full o' plans, one knocks another over. I hadn't Mumps to talk to, I should get top-heavy an' tumble in a fit. I suppose it's because I niver went to school much. That's what I jaw my old mother for. I says, 'You should ha' sent me to school a bit more,' I says-'an' then I could ha' read i' the books like fun, an' kep' my head cool an' empty.'

I think the more on 't when Mr. Tom says a thing, because his tongue doesn't overshoot him as mine does. Lors! I'm no better nor a tilted bottle, I arn't -I can't stop mysen when once I begin.

Dr. Kenn was at me to know what I did of a Sunday, as I didn't come to church. But I told him I was

upo' the travel three parts o' the Sundays-an' then I'm so used to bein' on my legs, I can't sit so long on end-'an' lors, sir,' says I, 'a packman can do wi' a small 'lowance o' church: it tastes strong,' says I; 'there's no call to lay it on thick.'

When I begun to carry a pack, I was as ignirant as a pig-net or calico was all the same to me. I thought them things the most vally as was the thickest. I was took in dreadful—for I'm a straightforrard chap -up to no tricks, mum. I can only say my nose is my own, for if I went beyond, I should lose myself pretty quick.

Lors! it's a thousand pities such a lady as you shouldn't deal with a packman, i'stead o' goin' into these new-fangled shops, where there's half-a-dozen fine gents wi' their chins propped up wi' a stiff stock, a-looking like bottles wi' ornamental stoppers, an' all got to get their dinner out of a bit o' calico: it stan's to reason you must pay three times the price you pay a packman, as is the nat'ral way o' gettin' goods-an' pays no rent, an' isn't forced to throttle himself till the lies are squeezed out on him, whether he will or no. But lors! mum, you know what it is better nor I doyou can see through them shopmen, I'll be bound.

See here, now, here's a thing to make a lass's mouth water, an' on'y two shillin'—an' why? Why, 'cause there's a bit of a moth-hole i' this plain end. Lors, I

think the moths an' the mildew was sent by Providence o' purpose to cheapen the goods a bit for the good-lookin' women as han't got much money. If it hadn't been for the moths, now, every hankicher on 'em 'ud ha' gone to the rich handsome ladies, like you, mum, at five shillin' apiece-not a farthin' less; but what does the moth do? Why, it nibbles off three shillin' o' the price i' no time, an' then a packman like me can carry 't to the poor lasses as live under the dark thack, to make a bit of a blaze for 'em. Lors, it's as good as a fire, to look at such a hankicher.

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Mr. Tom's as close as a iron biler, he is; but I'm a 'cutish chap, an' when I've left off carrying my pack, an' am at a loose end, I've got more brains nor I know what to do wi', an' I'm forced to busy myself wi' other folks's insides.

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If a chap gives me one black eye, that's enough for me I shan't ax him for another afore I sarve him out.

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I am a bit of a Do, you know; but it's on'y when a feller's a big rogue, or a big flat, I like to let him in a bit, that's all.

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Mumps doesn't mind a bit o' cheating, when it's them skinflint women, as haggle an' haggle, an' 'ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an' 'ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on 't. I niver cheat anybody as doesn't want to cheat me, Miss-

lors, I'm a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o' sport, an' now I don't go wi' the ferrets, I'n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women.

T. Tulliver.-Now, don't you be up to any tricks, Bob, else you'll get transported some day.

Bob Jakin.—No, no; not me, Mr. Tom. There's no law again' flea-bites. If I wasn't to take a fool in now and then, he'd niver get any wiser.

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Oh, it is difficult-life is very difficult! It seems right to me sometimes that we should follow our strongest feeling ;—but then, such feelings continually come across the ties that all our former life has made for us the ties that have made others dependent on us-and would cut them in two. If life were quite easy and simple, as it might have been in paradise, and we could always see that one being first towards whom . . . I mean, if life did not make duties for us before love comes, love would be a sign that two people ought to belong to each other. But I see-I feel it is not so now there are things we must renounce in life; some of us must resign love. Many things are difficult and dark to me; but I see one thing quite clearly-that I must not, cannot, seek my own happiness by sacrificing others. Love is natural; but surely pity and faithfulness and memory are natural too. And they would live in me still, and punish me if I did not obey them. I should be haunted by the suffering I had caused. Our love would be poisoned. Don't urge me; help me-help me, because I love you.

I couldn't live in peace if I put the shadow of a wilful sin between myself and God.

You feel, as I do, that the real tie lies in the feelings and expectations we have raised in other minds. Else all pledges might be broken, when there was no outward penalty. There would be no such thing as faithfulness.

I desire no future that will break the ties of the past.

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Faithfulness and constancy mean something else besides doing what is easiest and pleasantest to ourselves. They mean renouncing whatever is opposed to the reliance others have in us-whatever would cause misery to those whom the course of our lives has made dependent on us.

If the past is not to bind us, where can duty lie? We should have no law but the inclination of the moment.

I don't think I could ever bear to make any one unhappy; and yet I often hate myself, because I get angry sometimes at the sight of happy people.

I was never satisfied with a little of anything. That is why it is better for me to do without earthly happiness altogether. I never felt that I had enough

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