well up with you, resumes: ‘I am aware sir that it is a liberty to
intrude a further question on a gentleman walking for his
entertainment but might I make so bold as ask the favour of the way
to Dover sir and about the distance?’ You inform the well-spoken
young man that the way to Dover is straight on, and the distance
some eighteen miles. The well-spoken young man becomes greatly
agitated. ‘In the condition to which I am reduced,’ says he, ‘I
could not ope to reach Dover before dark even if my shoes were in a
state to take me there or my feet were in a state to old out over
the flinty road and were not on the bare ground of which any
gentleman has the means to satisfy himself by looking Sir may I
take the liberty of speaking to you?’ As the well-spoken young man
keeps so well up with you that you can’t prevent his taking the
liberty of speaking to you, he goes on, with fluency: ‘Sir it is
not begging that is my intention for I was brought up by the best
of mothers and begging is not my trade I should not know sir how to
follow it as a trade if such were my shameful wishes for the best
of mothers long taught otherwise and in the best of omes though now
reduced to take the present liberty on the Iway Sir my business was
the law-stationering and I was favourably known to the Solicitor-
General the Attorney-General the majority of the judges and the ole
of the legal profession but through ill elth in my family and the
treachery of a friend for whom I became security and he no other
than my own wife’s brother the brother of my own wife I was cast
forth with my tender partner and three young children not to beg
for I will sooner die of deprivation but to make my way to the seaport
town of Dover where I have a relative i in respect not only
that will assist me but that would trust me with untold gold Sir in
appier times and hare this calamity fell upon me I made for my
amusement when I little thought that I should ever need it
excepting for my air this’ – here the well-spoken young man put his
hand into his breast – ‘this comb! Sir I implore you in the name
of charity to purchase a tortoiseshell comb which is a genuine
article at any price that your humanity may put upon it and may the
blessings of a ouseless family awaiting with beating arts the
return of a husband and a father from Dover upon the cold stone
seats of London-bridge ever attend you Sir may I take the liberty
of speaking to you I implore you to buy this comb!’ By this time,
being a reasonably good walker, you will have been too much for the
well-spoken young man, who will stop short and express his disgust
and his want of breath, in a long expectoration, as you leave him
behind.
Towards the end of the same walk, on the same bright summer day, at
the corner of the next little town or village, you may find another
kind of tramp, embodied in the persons of a most exemplary couple
whose only improvidence appears to have been, that they spent the
last of their little All on soap. They are a man and woman,
spotless to behold – John Anderson, with the frost on his short
smock-frock instead of his ‘pow,’ attended by Mrs. Anderson. John
is over-ostentatious of the frost upon his raiment, and wears a
curious and, you would say, an almost unnecessary demonstration of
girdle of white linen wound about his waist – a girdle, snowy as
Mrs. Anderson’s apron. This cleanliness was the expiring effort of
the respectable couple, and nothing then remained to Mr. Anderson
but to get chalked upon his spade in snow-white copy-book
characters, HUNGRY! and to sit down here. Yes; one thing more
remained to Mr. Anderson – his character; Monarchs could not
deprive him of his hard-earned character. Accordingly, as you come