time, and getting
off the goods briskly. At last I took out of my waistcoat-pocket a small
lot wrapped in soft paper, and I put it this way (looking up at the
window where she was). "Now here, my blooming English maidens, is an
article, the last article of the present evening's sale, which I offer to
only you, the lovely Suffolk Dumplings biling over with beauty, and I
won't take a bid of a thousand pounds for from any man alive. Now what
is it? Why, I'll tell you what it is. It's made of fine gold, and it's
not broke, though there's a hole in the middle of it, and it's stronger
than any fetter that ever was forged, though it's smaller than any finger
in my set of ten. Why ten? Because, when my parents made over my
property to me, I tell you true, there was twelve sheets, twelve towels,
twelve table-cloths, twelve knives, twelve forks, twelve tablespoons, and
twelve teaspoons, but my set of fingers was two short of a dozen, and
could never since be matched. Now what else is it? Come, I'll tell you.
It's a hoop of solid gold, wrapped in a silver curl-paper, that I myself
took off the shining locks of the ever beautiful old lady in Threadneedle
Street, London city; I wouldn't tell you so if I hadn't the paper to
show, or you mightn't believe it even of me. Now what else is it? It's
a man-trap and a handcuff, the parish stocks and a leg-lock, all in gold
and all in one. Now what else is it? It's a wedding-ring. Now I'll
tell you what I'm a going to do with it. I'm not a going to offer this
lot for money; but I mean to give it to the next of you beauties that
laughs, and I'll pay her a visit to-morrow morning at exactly half after
nine o'clock as the chimes go, and I'll take her out for a walk to put up
the banns." She laughed, and got the ring handed up to her. When I
called in the morning, she says, "O dear! It's never you, and you never
mean it?" "It's ever me," says I, "and I am ever yours, and I ever mean
it." So we got married, after being put up three times--which, by the
bye, is quite in the Cheap Jack way again, and shows once more how the
Cheap Jack customs pervade society.

She wasn't a bad wife, but she had a temper. If she could have parted
with that one article at a sacrifice, I wouldn't have swopped her away in
exchange for any other woman in England. Not that I ever did swop her
away, for we lived together till she died, and that was thirteen year.
Now, my lords and ladies and gentlefolk