then,'
I says, 'I have heard as there is an expedition going down to
Manjester and Liverpool a playacting, If I goes anywhere for change
it is along with that.' Mrs. Harris clasps her hands, and drops
into a chair, 'And have I lived to hear,' she says, 'of Sairey
Gamp, as always kept herself respectable, in company with
play-actors.' 'Mrs. Harris,' I says to her, 'be not alarmed, not
reg'lar play-actors--hammertoors.' 'Thank Evans!' says Mrs. Harris,
and bustizes into a flood of tears,"

Dickens saw with Hood the power to be obtained by uniting pathos with
humour. Such an intermixture at first appears inharmonious, but in
reality produces sweet music. There is something corresponding to the
course of external nature with its light and shade its sunshine and
showers, in this melancholy chased away by mirth, and joy merging into
sadness. Here, Dickens has held up the mirror, and shown a bright
reflection of the outer world. Out of many choice specimens, we may
select the following from the speech of the Cheap Jack--

"'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 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
afterwards, 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 them, and I am consequently to be elevated to the
House of Peers next week by the title of the Duke of Cheap, and
Markis Jack-a-looral."

He puts up a lot and after recommending it with all his eloquence
pretends to knock it down--

"As there had been no bid at all, everybody looked about and
grinned at everybody, while I touched little Sophy's face (he was
holding her in his arms) and asked her if she felt faint or giddy.
'Not very, father; it will soon be over.' Then turning from the
pretty patient eyes, which were opened now, and seeing nothing but
grins across my lighted greasepot. I went on again in my cheap Jack
style. 'Where's the butcher?' (my mournful eye had just caught
sight of a fat young butcher on the outside of the crowd) 'She says