miscellaneous articles, all of which she has
acquired from time to time, without the slightest
definite idea of their being any use to her,
but with a vague notion that they may turn
up handy some day. Mrs. Squatto, Captain
Squatto's widow, who is seventy-eight, and
very nearly blind, has quite a bibliomania for
book-purchasing, whether through a pure
Roxburghian love of learning, or through a
desire for outbidding the Misses Spackthorn,
who conduct the young ladies' seminary in
Danes' Gate, has not been stated. Old Puckfist,
the druggist, bought an extensive consignment
of slates at Jerry Morson's sale
last year, knocked his doors and stair-walls
half to pieces in bringing them home, and
has never made any use of them since. Miss
Reek, the milliner, who is an inveterate sale-
frequenter, positively outbid Puckfist on the
same occasion, and had knocked down to her
a hideous figure of a river god, in Roman
cement, which was wont to stand in Jerry
Morson's garden, with a neat bordering of
oyster-shells, bits of painted coal, and moss,
like parsley round cold meat, surrounding it.
She never had the courage to remove it, or
sell it, or do anything with it: and it stands
to this day in Hodder the plasterer's yard, a
dreary battered old object, with a broken
nose, and a portrait of Latherum, the national
school-master, vilely drawn in red chalk on
its pedestal. I think, were it not so heavy,
the boys would have it for a Guy, next fifth
of November; yet, I dare say, Miss Reek,
in common with Miss Ogle, still cherishes the
idea that it will eventually turn up handy.
As so many Dodderham folk are so fond of
buying, it may readily be imagined that a
considerable number are as addicted to selling
their goods through the same channel. Thus
you will scarcely meet a Dodderham burgess,
or small annuitant, but talks of his sale, his
father's sale, aunt's sale, or brother-in-law's
sale. A marriage, a death, a removal, a
family quarrel, a rise or a fall in fortune, are
all so many incentives to the Dodderham
people to call in the auctioneer and have a
sale; and you may believe that popular as
Lile Jack was in his lifetime, he was very
frequently indeed favoured with instructions to
sell without reserve.

Jack's delight was in selling inns and public-
houses, by auction. He was, as I have already
hinted, a humourist; and with much north-
country jocoseness, would he expatiate on the
neat wines and genuine spirits, the comfortable
beds, commodious, commercial and show rooms,
clean stabling, convenient eating parlours,
roomy bar, ancient lineage, and excellent
connection of the establishments he offered for
public competition. Jack's cracks, or witticisms
in the rostrum, grew to be famous all
over the country-side; sly, personal satire
(genial and good-humoured, however), mingled
with his professional facetiousness, and it
grew at last quite common for one burges
to meet another in the market-place on the
morning of a sale, and say, " Ise gangin up
street t'heer Lile Jack trot fouk, will't come?"
Trot is Dodderham for the familiar London
chaff.

The great Squire Rigg, of Regans's Manor—
the Lord of Regans—as with a remnant of
feudal reverence he was still called by the
peasantry, was a frequent attendant at Lile
Jack's sales, and it was he who started, and
so liberally subscribed to the fund for presenting
Jack with the bonny silver hammer,
which he flourished with so much honest
pride for so many years. The Lord of Regans
put the hammer into the auctioneer's
hand himself, after a dinner at John Quitt's,
the Royal Oak hotel; with a speech. I will
not say the Squire's speech was bad, because
Lile Jack's oratory in reply was infinitely
worse, not to say choky. I know that there
were a good many healths drunk that night,
and much laughter and good fellowship, and
that the auctioneer coming home that night
could only ejaculate to his household, in very
thick and incoherent accents—" T'Lord O'Regans,
th' born Lord O'Regans. A silver
hammer. Jack thee's lile, thee's lile! " with
which pardonable expression of vanity he
fell, and they put him to bed.

But, as has already been noticed in this
performance, there were dark sides in Jack's
professional career, and Jack's hammer was
of coffin-elm as well as silver. It became his
duty, in the way of business, to sell up the
Widow Webb. Mrs. Webb was a poor hard-
working body, whose husband, a rachitic
tailor, had lived, and worked, and died in
extreme poverty. The lone woman, on his
decease, took to waistcoat-making as a
livelihood, but her earnings were very small, and
the times were very hard. She had a grown-
up daughter who turned her mother's joy to
sorrow, and coming in beauty, and health, and
innocence, departed in darkness, so that she
was covered with it and with shame. This
help-meet rudely severed, the Widow Webb
still kept patiently and cheerfully upon her
stony way, rearing up her two young children,
one of whom was a mere baby, a girl,—the
other a feeble, flaxen-haired, pale-faced child,
five years old, by name Obadiah. They called
him Oby. The forlorn mother struggled on
and on against poverty as a doctor will struggle
against a hopeless cancer, or a besieged
general without arms or provisions, and
almost without men, will defend a fortress
against a powerful, persevering assailant.
But no relief came, and the citadel was
stormed at last. The widow had the misfortune
to sit under a hard landlord. Gregson,
the tea-dealer, surnamed Smell o' Brass;
which sobriquet he had acquired through a
colloquy with another burgess, who, expressing
an opinion that he, Gregson, must " have
a power o' brass," the tea-dealer answered,
"Brass! I fairly smell o' brass! " Mrs,
Webb grew in arrear with her rent, and
could not pay, and Smell o' Brass was