en, I'll tell you my opinion. I so despise the threepence, that
I'd sooner take three shillings. There. For three shillings, three
shillings, three shillings! Gone. Hand 'em over to the lucky man."

As there had been no bid at all, everybody looked about and grinned at
everybody, while I touched little Sophy's face 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 grease-pot, I went on again in my
Cheap Jack style. "Where's the butcher?" (My sorrowful eye had just
caught sight of a fat young butcher on the outside of the crowd.) "She
says the good luck is the butcher's. Where is he?" Everybody handed on
the blushing butcher to the front, and there was a roar, and the butcher
felt himself obliged to put his hand in his pocket, and take the lot. The
party so picked out, in general, does feel obliged to take the lot--good
four times out of six. Then we had another lot, the counterpart of that
one, and sold it sixpence cheaper, which is always wery much enjoyed.
Then we had the spectacles. It ain't a special profitable lot, but I put
'em on, and I see what the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going to take
off the taxes, and I see what the sweetheart of the young woman in the
shawl is doing at home, and I see what the Bishops has got for dinner,
and a deal more that seldom fails to fetch 'em 'up in their spirits; and
the better their spirits, the better their bids. Then we had the ladies'
lot--the teapot, tea-caddy, glass sugar-basin, half-a-dozen spoons, and
caudle-cup--and all the time I was making similar excuses to give a look
or two and say a word or two to my poor child. It was while the second
ladies' lot was holding 'em enchained that I felt her lift herself a
little on my shoulder, to look across the dark street. "What troubles
you, darling?" "Nothing troubles me, father. I am not at all troubled.
But don't I see a pretty churchyard over there?" "Yes, my dear." "Kiss
me twice, dear father, and lay me down to rest upon that churchyard grass
so soft and green." I staggered back into the cart with her head dropped
on my shoulder, and I says to her mother, "Quick. Shut the door! Don't
let those laughing people see!" "What's the matter?" she cries. "O
woman, woman," I tells her, "you'll never catch my little Sophy by her
hair again, for she has flown