who for some minutes past had been listening
attentively to our discourse, interposed, saying, in a low, soft tone: "I
really don't see, John, why you shouldn't sell the young man the things,
seeing that he wishes for them, and is so confident; you have told him
plainly how matters stand, and if anything ill should befall him, people
couldn't lay the blame on you; but I don't think any ill will befall him,
and who knows but God has sent him to our assistance in time of need."

"I'll hear of no such thing," said the tinker; "I have drunk at the young
man's expense, and though he says he's quarrelsome, I would not wish to
sit in pleasanter company. A pretty fellow I should be, now, if I were
to let him follow his own will. If he once sets up on my beat, he's a
lost man, his ribs will be stove in, and his head knocked off his
shoulders. There, you are crying, but you shan't have your will, though;
I won't be the young man's destruction--If, indeed, I thought he could
manage the tinker--but he never can; he says he can hit, but it's no use
hitting the tinker;--crying still! you are enough to drive one mad. I
say, young man, I believe you understand a thing or two; just now you
were talking of knowing hard words and names--I don't wish to send you to
your mischief--you say you know hard words and names, let us see. Only
on one condition I'll sell you the pony and things; as for the beat it's
gone, isn't mine--sworn away by my own mouth. Tell me what's my name; if
you can't, may I--"

_Myself_.--Don't swear, it's a bad habit, neither pleasant nor
profitable. Your name is Slingsby--Jack Slingsby. There, don't stare,
there's nothing in my telling you your name: I've been in these parts
before, at least not very far from here. Ten years ago, when I was
little more than a child, I was about twenty miles from here in a post-
chaise at the door of an inn, and as I looked from the window of the
chaise, I saw you standing by a gutter with a big tin ladle in your hand,
and somebody called you Jack Slingsby. I never forget anything I hear or
see; I can't, I wish I could. So there's nothing strange in my knowing
your name; indeed, there's nothing strange in anything, provided you
examine it to the bottom. Now, what am I to give you for the things?

I paid Slingsby five pounds ten shillings for his stock in trade, cart,
and pony--purchased sundry provisions of the landlady, also a wagoner's
frock, which had belonged to a ce