ver so
long.

"How many?" repeated the old man, impatiently.

"If you please," said Davy, "I don't think I'll take any watches to-day.
I'll call"--

"Drat 'em!" interrupted the old man, angrily beating the watches with
his ladle; "I'll never get rid of em--never!"

"It seems to me"--began Davy, soothingly.

"Of course it does!" again interrupted the old man, as crossly as
before. "Of course it does! That's because you won't listen to the why
of it."

"But I _will_ listen," said Davy.

"Then sit down on the floor and hold up your ears," said the old man.

Davy did as he was told to do, so far as sitting down on the floor was
concerned, and the old man pulled a paper out of one of his boots, and,
glaring at Davy over the top of it, said, angrily:--

"You're a pretty spectacle! I'm another. What does that make?"

"A pair of spectacles, I suppose," said Davy.

"Right!" said the old man. "Here they are." And pulling an enormous pair
of spectacles out of the other boot he put them on, and began reading
aloud from his paper:--

_My recollectest thoughts are those
Which I remember yet;
And bearing on, as you'd suppose,
The things I don't forget._

_But my resemblest thoughts are less
Alike than they should be;
A state of things, as you'll confess,
You very seldom see._

"Clever, isn't it?" said the old man, peeping proudly over the top of
the paper.

"Yes, I think it is," said Davy, rather doubtfully.

"Now comes the cream of the whole thing," said the old man. "Just listen
to this:"--

_And yet the mostest thought I love
Is what no one believes--_

Here the old man hastily crammed the paper into his boot again, and
stared solemnly at Davy.

"What is it?" said Davy, after waiting a moment for him to complete the
verse. The old man glanced suspiciously about the shop, and then added,
in a hoarse whisper:--

_That I'm the sole survivor of
The famous Forty Thieves!_

"But I thought the Forty Thieves were all boiled to death," said Davy.

"All but me," said the old man, decidedly. "I was in the last jar, and
when they came to me the oil was off the boil, or the boil was off the
oil,--I forget which it was,--but it ruined my digestion, and made me
look like a gingerbread man. What larks we used to have!" he continued,
rocking himself back and forth and chuckling hoarsely. "Oh! we were a
precious lot, we were! I'm Sham-Sham, you know. Then t