g further; I don't much like the trade, but"--

"But he's your uncle, sir. It's a glorious money-making business. He
offers to take you as an apprentice. Nancy, my love, pack up this lad's
things, and start him off by the mail to-morrow. Go to bed, Tom."

So the die was cast! The mail was punctual; and I was duly delivered to
Ticket--the great Ticket--my maternal, and everybody else's undefinable,
uncle. Duly equipped in glazed calico sleeves, and ditto apron, I took my
place behind the counter. But as it was discovered that I had a peculiar
_penchant_ for giving ten shillings in exchange for gilt sixpences, and
encouraging all sorts of smashing by receiving counterfeit crowns,
half-crowns, and shillings, I received a box on the ear, and a positive
command to confine myself to the up-stairs, or "top-of-the-spout
department" for the future. Here my chief duties were to deposit such
articles as progressed up that wooden shaft in their respective places,
and by the same means transmit the "redeemed" to the shop below. This was
but dull work, and in the long dreary evenings, when partial darkness (for
I was allowed no candle) seemed to invite sleep, I frequently fell into a
foggy sort of mystified somnolency--the partial prostration of my
corporeal powers being amply compensated by the vague wanderings of
indistinct imagination.

In these dozing moods some of the parcels round me would appear not only
imbued with life, but, like the fabled animals of AEsop, blessed with the
gift of tongues. Others, though speechless, would conjure up a vivid train
of breathing tableaux, replete with their sad histories. That tiny relic,
half the size of the small card it is pinned upon, swells like the
imprisoned genie the fisherman released from years of bondage, and the
shadowy vapour takes once more a form. From the small circle of that
wedding ring, the tear-fraught widow and the pallid orphan, closely dogged
by Famine and Disease, spring to my sight. That brilliant tiara opens the
vista of the rich saloon, and shows the humbled pride of the titled
hostess, lying excuses for her absent gems. The flash contents of that
bright yellow handkerchief shade forth the felon's bar; the daring burglar
eyeing with confidence the counsel learned in the law's defects, fee'd by
its produce to defend its quondam owner. The effigies of Pride,
Extravagance, honest Distress, and reckless Plunder, all by turns usurp
the scene. In my last waking sleep, ju