his robe, his cheek, his tattered
sandal, and the hardy foot it covered.

And his grief--whence came his sorrow? I will tell you. He bore it in
his hand. He had evidently just concluded the compact by which it became
his. His business was that of a purchaser of domestic raiment. At early
dawn nay, at what hour when the city is alive--do we not all hear the
nasal cry of "Clo?" In Paris, Habits Galons, Marchand d'habits, is the
twanging signal with which the wandering merchant makes his presence
known. It was in Paris I saw this man. Where else have I not seen him?
In the Roman Ghetto--at the Gate of David, in his fathers' once
imperial city. The man I mean was an itinerant vender and purchaser of
wardrobes--what you call an . . . Enough! You know his name.

On his left shoulder hung his bag; and he held in that hand a white hat,
which I am sure he had just purchased, and which was the cause of the
grief which smote his noble features. Of course I cannot particularize
the sum, but he had given too much for that hat. He felt he might have
got the thing for less money. It was not the amount, I am sure; it was
the principle involved. He had given fourpence (let us say) for that
which threepence would have purchased. He had been done: and a manly
shame was upon him, that he, whose energy, acuteness, experience, point
of honor, should have made him the victor in any mercantile duel in
which he should engage, had been overcome by a porter's wife, who very
likely sold him the old hat, or by a student who was tired of it. I can
understand his grief. Do I seem to be speaking of it in a disrespectful
or flippant way? Then you mistake me. He had been outwitted. He had
desired, coaxed, schemed, haggled, got what he wanted, and now found he
had paid too much for his bargain. You don't suppose I would ask you to
laugh at that man's grief? It is you, clumsy cynic, who are disposed
to sneer, whilst it may be tears of genuine sympathy are trickling down
this nose of mine. What do you mean by laughing? If you saw a wounded
soldier on the field of battle, would you laugh? If you saw a ewe robbed
of her lamb, would you laugh, you brute? It is you who are the cynic,
and have no feeling: and you sneer because that grief is unintelligible
to you which touches my finer sensibility. The OLD-CLOTHES'-MAN had been
defeated in one of the daily battles of his most interesting, chequered,
adventurous life.

Have you ever figured to yourself what su