ose school, teaching children to
write in copy-books, "Evil communication corrupts good manners," or "You
cannot touch pitch without defilement," or to spell out of Abedariums, or
to read out of Jack Smith, or Sandford and Merton. Only conceive him, I
say, drudging in such guise from morning till night, without any rational
enjoyment but to beat the children. Would you compare such a dog's life
as that with your own--the happiest under heaven--true Eden life, as the
Germans would say,--pitching your tent under the pleasant hedge-row,
listening to the song of the feathered tribes, collecting all the leaky
kettles in the neighbourhood, soldering and joining, earning your honest
bread by the wholesome sweat of your brow--making ten holes--hey, what's
this? what's the man crying for?

Suddenly the tinker had covered his face with his hands, and begun to sob
and moan like a man in the deepest distress; the breast of his wife was
heaved with emotion; even the children were agitated, the youngest began
to roar.

_Myself_.--What's the matter with you; what are you all crying about?

_Tinker_ (uncovering his face).--Lord, why to hear you talk; isn't that
enough to make anybody cry--even the poor babes? Yes, you said right,
'tis life in the garden of Eden--the tinker's; I see so now that I'm
about to give it up.

_Myself_.--Give it up! you must not think of such a thing.

_Tinker_.--No, I can't bear to think of it, and yet I must; what's to be
done? How hard to be frightened to death, to be driven off the roads.

_Myself_.--Who has driven you off the roads?

_Tinker_.--Who! the Flaming Tinman.

_Myself_.--Who is he?

_Tinker_.--The biggest rogue in England, and the cruellest, or he
wouldn't have served me as he has done--I'll tell you all about it. I
was born upon the roads, and so was my father before me, and my mother
too; and I worked with them as long as they lived, as a dutiful child,
for I have nothing to reproach myself with on their account; and when my
father died I took up the business, and went his beat, and supported my
mother for the little time she lived; and when she died I married this
young woman, who was not born upon the roads, but was a small tradesman's
daughter, at Glo'ster. She had a kindness for me, and, notwithstanding
her friends were against the match, she married the poor tinker, and came
to live with him upon the roads. Well, young man, for six or seven years
I was the happiest fellow