Doctor Marigold

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DOCTOR MARIGOLD


I am a Cheap Jack, and my own father's name was Willum Marigold. It was
in his lifetime supposed by some that his name was William, but my own
father always consistently said, No, it was Willum. On which point I
content myself with looking at the argument this way: If a man is not
allowed to know his own name in a free country, how much is he allowed to
know in a land of slavery? As to looking at the argument through the
medium of the Register, Willum Marigold come into the world before
Registers come up much,--and went out of it too. They wouldn't have been
greatly in his line neither, if they had chanced to come up before him.

I was born on the Queen's highway, but it was the King's at that time. A
doctor was fetched to my own mother by my own father, when it took place
on a common; and in consequence of his being a very kind gentleman, and
accepting no fee but a tea-tray, I was named Doctor, out of gratitude and
compliment to him. There you have me. Doctor Marigold.

I am at present a middle-aged man of a broadish build, in cords,
leggings, and a sleeved waistcoat the strings of which is always gone
behind. Repair them how you will, they go like fiddle-strings. You have
been to the theatre, and you have seen one of the wiolin-players screw up
his wiolin, after listening to it as if it had been whispering the secret
to him that it feared it was out of order, and then you have heard it
snap. That's as exactly similar to my waistcoat as a waistcoat and a
wiolin can be like one another.

I am partial to a white hat, and I like a shawl round my neck wore loose
and easy. Sitting down is my favourite posture. If I have a taste in
point of personal jewelry, it is mother-of-pearl buttons. There you have
me again, as large as life.

The doctor having accepted a tea-tray, you'll guess that my father was a
Cheap Jack before me. You are right. He was. It was a pretty tray. It
represented a large lady going along a serpentining up-hill gravel-walk,
to attend a little church. Two swans had likewise come astray with the
same intentions. When I call her a large lady, I don't mean in point of
breadth, for there she fell below my views, but she more than made it up
in heighth; her heighth and slimness was--in short THE heighth of both.

I often saw that tray, after I was the innocently smiling cause (or more
likely screeching one) of the doctor's standing it up on a table against
the wall in his consulting-room. Whenever my own father and mother were
in that part of the country, I used to put my head (I have heard my own
mother say it was flaxen curls at that time, though you wouldn't know an
old hearth-broom from it now till you come to the handle, and found it
wasn't me) in at the doctor's door, and the doctor was always glad to see
me, and said, "Aha, my brother practitioner! Come in, little M.D. How
are your inclinations as to sixpence?"

You can't go on for ever, you'll find, nor yet could my father nor yet my
mother. If you don't go off as a whole when you are about due, you're
liable to go off in part, and two to one your head's the part. Gradually
my father went off his, and my mother went off hers. It was in a
harmless way, but it put out the family where I boarded them. The old
couple, though retired, got to be wholly and solely devoted to the Cheap
Jack business, and were always selling the family off. Whenever the
cloth was laid for dinner, my father began rattling the plates and
dishes, as we do in our line when we put up crockery for a bid, only he
had lost the trick of it, and mostly let 'em drop and broke 'em. As the
old lady had been used to sit in the cart, and hand the articles out one
by one to the old gentleman on the footboard to sell, just in the same
way she handed him every item of the family's property, and they disposed
of it in their own imaginations from morning to night. At last the old
gentleman, lying bedridden in the same room with the old lady, cries out
in the old patter, fluent, after having been silent for two days and
nights: "Now here, my jolly companions every one,--which the Nightingale
club in a village was held, At the sign of the Cabbage and Shears, Where
the singers no doubt would have greatly excelled, But for want of taste,
voices and ears,--now, here, my jolly companions, every one, is a working
model of a used-up old Cheap Jack, without a tooth in his head, and with
a pain in every bone: so like life that it would be just as good if it
wasn't better, just as bad if it wasn't worse, and just as new if it
wasn't worn out. Bid for the working model of the old Cheap Jack, who
has drunk more gunpowder-tea with the ladies in his time than would blow
the lid off a washerwoman's copper, and carry it as many thousands of
miles higher than the moon as naught nix naught, divided by the national
debt, carry nothing to the poor-rates, three under, and two over. Now,
my hearts of oak and men of straw, what do you say for the lot? Two
shillings, a shilling, tenpence, eightpence, sixpence, fourpence.
Twopence? Who said twopence? The gentleman in the scarecrow's hat? I
am ashamed of the gentleman in the scarecrow's hat. I really am ashamed
of him for his want of public spirit. Now I'll tell you what I'll do
with you. Come! I'll throw you in a working model of a old woman that
was married to the old Cheap Jack so long ago that upon my word and
honour it took place in Noah's Ark, before the Unicorn could get in to
forbid the banns by blowing a tune upon his horn. There now! Come! What
do you say for both? I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I don't bear
you malice for being so backward. Here! If you make me a bid that'll
only reflect a little credit on your town, I'll throw you in a warming-
pan for nothing, and lend you a toasting-fork for life. Now come; what
do you say after that splendid offer? Say two pound, say thirty
shillings, say a pound, say ten shillings, say five, say two and six. You
don't say even two and six? You say two and three? No. You shan't have
the lot for two and three. I'd sooner give it to you, if you was good-
looking enough. Here! Missis! Chuck the old man and woman into the
cart, put the horse to, and drive 'em away and bury 'em!" Such were the
last words of Willum Marigold, my own father, and they were carried out,
by him and by his wife, my own mother, on one and the same day, as I
ought to know, having followed as mourner.

My father had been a lovely one in his time at the Cheap Jack work, as
his dying observations went to prove. But I top him. I don't say it
because it's myself, but because it has been universally acknowledged by
all that has had the means of comparison. I have worked at it. I have
measured myself against other public speakers,--Members of Parliament,
Platforms, Pulpits, Counsel learned in the law,--and where I have found
'em good, I have took a bit of imagination from 'em, and where I have
found 'em bad, I have let 'em alone. Now I'll tell you what. I mean to
go down into my grave declaring that of all the callings ill used in
Great Britain, the Cheap Jack calling is the worst used. Why ain't we a
profession? Why ain't we endowed with privileges? Why are we forced to
take out a hawker's license, when no such thing is expected of the
political hawkers? Where's the difference betwixt us? Except that we
are Cheap Jacks and they are Dear Jacks, _I_ don't see any difference but
what's in our favour.

For look here! Say it's election time. I am on the footboard of my cart
in the market-place, on a Saturday night. I put up a general
miscellaneous lot. I say: "Now here, my free and independent woters, I'm
a going to give you such a chance as you never had in all your born days,
nor yet the days preceding. Now I'll show you what I am a going to do
with you. Here's a pair of razors that'll shave you closer than the
Board of Guardians; here's a flat-iron worth its weight in gold; here's a
frying-pan artificially flavoured with essence of beefsteaks to that
degree that you've only got for the rest of your lives to fry bread and
dripping in it and there you are replete with animal food; here's a
genuine chronometer watch in such a solid silver case that you may knock
at the door with it when you come home late from a social meeting, and
rouse your wife and family, and save up your knocker for the postman; and
here's half-a-dozen dinner plates that you may play the cymbals with to
charm baby when it's fractious. Stop! I'll throw in another article,
and I'll give you that, and it's a rolling-pin; and if the baby can only
get it well into its mouth when its teeth is coming and rub the gums once
with it, they'll come through double, in a fit of laughter equal to being
tickled. Stop again! I'll throw you in another article, because I don't
like the looks of you, for you haven't the appearance of buyers unless I
lose by you, and because I'd rather lose than not take money to-night,
and that's a looking-glass in which you may see how ugly you look when
you don't bid. What do you say now? Come! Do you say a pound? Not
you, for you haven't got it. Do you say ten shillings? Not you, for you
owe more to the tallyman. Well then, I'll tell you what I'll do with
you. I'll heap 'em all on the footboard of the cart,--there they are!
razors, flat watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and away for four
shillings, and I'll give you sixpence for your trouble!" This is me, the
Cheap Jack. But on the Monday morning, in the same market-place, comes
the Dear Jack on the hustings--_his_ cart--and, what does _he_ say? "Now
my free and independent woters, I am a going to give you such a chance"
(he begins just like me) "as you never had in all your born days, and
that's the chance of sending Myself to Parliament. Now I'll tell you
what I am a going to do for you. Here's the interests of this
magnificent town promoted above all the rest of the civilised and
uncivilised earth. Here's your railways carried, and your neighbours'
railways jockeyed. Here's all your sons in the Post-office. Here's
Britannia smiling on you. Here's the eyes of Europe on you. Here's
uniwersal prosperity for you, repletion of animal food, golden
cornfields, gladsome homesteads, and rounds of applause from your own
hearts, all in one lot, and that's myself. Will you take me as I stand?
You won't? Well, then, I'll tell you what I'll do with you. Come now!
I'll throw you in anything you ask for. There! Church-rates, abolition
of more malt tax, no malt tax, universal education to the highest mark,
or uniwersal ignorance to the lowest, total abolition of flogging in the
army or a dozen for every private once a month all round, Wrongs of Men
or Rights of Women--only say which it shall be, take 'em or leave 'em,
and I'm of your opinion altogether, and the lot's your own on your own
terms. There! You won't take it yet! Well, then, I'll tell you what
I'll do with you. Come! You _are_ such free and independent woters, and
I am so proud of you,--you _are_ such a noble and enlightened
constituency, and I _am_ so ambitious of the honour and dignity of being
your member, which is by far the highest level to which the wings of the
human mind can soar,--that I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I'll
throw you in all the public-houses in your magnificent town for nothing.
Will that content you? It won't? You won't take the lot yet? Well,
then, before I put the horse in and drive away, and make the offer to the
next most magnificent town that can be discovered, I'll tell you what
I'll do. Take the lot, and I'll drop two thousand pound in the streets
of your magnificent town for them to pick up that can. Not enough? Now
look here. This is the very furthest that I'm a going to. I'll make it
two thousand five hundred. And still you won't? Here, missis! Put the
horse--no, stop half a moment, I shouldn't like to turn my back upon you
neither for a trifle, I'll make it two thousand seven hundred and fifty
pound. There! Take the lot on your own terms, and I'll count out two
thousand seven hundred and fifty pound on the footboard of the cart, to
be dropped in the streets of your magnificent town for them to pick up
that can. What do you say? Come now! You won't do better, and you may
do worse. You take it? Hooray! Sold again, and got the seat!"

These Dear Jacks soap the people shameful, but we Cheap Jacks don't. We
tell 'em the truth about themselves to their faces, and scorn to court
'em. As to wenturesomeness in the way of puffing up the lots, the Dear
Jacks beat us hollow. It is considered in the Cheap Jack calling, that
better patter can be made out of a gun than any article we put up from
the cart, except a pair of spectacles. I often hold forth about a gun
for a quarter of an hour, and feel as if I need never leave off. But
when I tell 'em what the gun can do, and what the gun has brought down, I
never go half so far as the Dear Jacks do when they make speeches in
praise of _their_ guns--their great guns that set 'em on to do it.
Besides, I'm in business for myself: I ain't sent down into the market-
place to order, as they are. Besides, again, my guns don't know what I
say in their laudation, and their guns do, and the whole concern of 'em
have reason to be sick and ashamed all round. These are some of my
arguments for declaring that the Cheap Jack calling is treated ill in
Great Britain, and for turning warm when I think of the other Jacks in
question setting themselves up to pretend to look down upon it.

I courted my wife from the footboard of the cart. I did indeed. She was
a Suffolk young woman, and it was in Ipswich market-place right opposite
the corn-chandler's shop. I had noticed her up at a window last Saturday
that was, appreciating highly. I had took to her, and I had said to
myself, "If not already disposed of, I'll have that lot." Next Saturday
that come, I pitched the cart on the same pitch, and I was in very high
feather indeed, keeping 'em laughing the whole of the time, and getting
off the goods briskly. At last I took out of my waistcoat-pocket a small
lot wrapped in soft paper, and I put it this way (looking up at the
window where she was). "Now here, my blooming English maidens, is an
article, the last article of the present evening's sale, which I offer to
only you, the lovely Suffolk Dumplings biling over with beauty, and I
won't take a bid of a thousand pounds for from any man alive. Now what
is it? Why, I'll tell you what it is. It's made of fine gold, and it's
not broke, though there's a hole in the middle of it, and it's stronger
than any fetter that ever was forged, though it's smaller than any finger
in my set of ten. Why ten? Because, when my parents made over my
property to me, I tell you true, there was twelve sheets, twelve towels,
twelve table-cloths, twelve knives, twelve forks, twelve tablespoons, and
twelve teaspoons, but my set of fingers was two short of a dozen, and
could never since be matched. Now what else is it? Come, I'll tell you.
It's a hoop of solid gold, wrapped in a silver curl-paper, that I myself
took off the shining locks of the ever beautiful old lady in Threadneedle
Street, London city; I wouldn't tell you so if I hadn't the paper to
show, or you mightn't believe it even of me. Now what else is it? It's
a man-trap and a handcuff, the parish stocks and a leg-lock, all in gold
and all in one. Now what else is it? It's a wedding-ring. Now I'll
tell you what I'm a going to do with it. I'm not a going to offer this
lot for money; but I mean to give it to the next of you beauties that
laughs, and I'll pay her a visit to-morrow morning at exactly half after
nine o'clock as the chimes go, and I'll take her out for a walk to put up
the banns." She laughed, and got the ring handed up to her. When I
called in the morning, she says, "O dear! It's never you, and you never
mean it?" "It's ever me," says I, "and I am ever yours, and I ever mean
it." So we got married, after being put up three times--which, by the
bye, is quite in the Cheap Jack way again, and shows once more how the
Cheap Jack customs pervade society.

She wasn't a bad wife, but she had a temper. If she could have parted
with that one article at a sacrifice, I wouldn't have swopped her away in
exchange for any other woman in England. Not that I ever did swop her
away, for we lived together till she died, and that was thirteen year.
Now, my lords and ladies and gentlefolks all, I'll let you into a secret,
though you won't believe it. Thirteen year of temper in a Palace would
try the worst of you, but thirteen year of temper in a Cart would try the
best of you. You are kept so very close to it in a cart, you see.
There's thousands of couples among you getting on like sweet ile upon a
whetstone in houses five and six pairs of stairs high, that would go to
the Divorce Court in a cart. Whether the jolting makes it worse, I don't
undertake to decide; but in a cart it does come home to you, and stick to
you. Wiolence in a cart is _so_ wiolent, and aggrawation in a cart is
_so_ aggrawating.

We might have had such a pleasant life! A roomy cart, with the large
goods hung outside, and the bed slung underneath it when on the road, an
iron pot and a kettle, a fireplace for the cold weather, a chimney for
the smoke, a hanging-shelf and a cupboard, a dog and a horse. What more
do you want? You draw off upon a bit of turf in a green lane or by the
roadside, you hobble your old horse and turn him grazing, you light your
fire upon the ashes of the last visitors, you cook your stew, and you
wouldn't call the Emperor of France your father. But have a temper in
the cart, flinging language and the hardest goods in stock at you, and
where are you then? Put a name to your feelings.

My dog knew as well when she was on the turn as I did. Before she broke
out, he would give a howl, and bolt. How he knew it, was a mystery to
me; but the sure and certain knowledge of it would wake him up out of his
soundest sleep, and he would give a howl, and bolt. At such times I
wished I was him.

The worst of it was, we had a daughter born to us, and I love children
with all my heart. When she was in her furies she beat the child. This
got to be so shocking, as the child got to be four or five year old, that
I have many a time gone on with my whip over my shoulder, at the old
horse's head, sobbing and crying worse than ever little Sophy did. For
how could I prevent it? Such a thing is not to be tried with such a
temper--in a cart--without coming to a fight. It's in the natural size
and formation of a cart to bring it to a fight. And then the poor child
got worse terrified than before, as well as worse hurt generally, and her
mother made complaints to the next people we lighted on, and the word
went round, "Here's a wretch of a Cheap Jack been a beating his wife."

Little Sophy was such a brave child! She grew to be quite devoted to her
poor father, though he could do so little to help her. She had a
wonderful quantity of shining dark hair, all curling natural about her.
It is quite astonishing to me now, that I didn't go tearing mad when I
used to see her run from her mother before the cart, and her mother catch
her by this hair, and pull her down by it, and beat her.

Such a brave child I said she was! Ah! with reason.

"Don't you mind next time, father dear," she would whisper to me, with
her little face still flushed, and her bright eyes still wet; "if I don't
cry out, you may know I am not much hurt. And even if I do cry out, it
will only be to get mother to let go and leave off." What I have seen
the little spirit bear--for me--without crying out!

Yet in other respects her mother took great care of her. Her clothes
were always clean and neat, and her mother was never tired of working at
'em. Such is the inconsistency in things. Our being down in the marsh
country in unhealthy weather, I consider the cause of Sophy's taking bad
low fever; but however she took it, once she got it she turned away from
her mother for evermore, and nothing would persuade her to be touched by
her mother's hand. She would shiver and say, "No, no, no," when it was
offered at, and would hide her face on my shoulder, and hold me tighter
round the neck.

The Cheap Jack business had been worse than ever I had known it, what
with one thing and what with another (and not least with railroads, which
will cut it all to pieces, I expect, at last), and I was run dry of
money. For which reason, one night at that period of little Sophy's
being so bad, either we must have come to a dead-lock for victuals and
drink, or I must have pitched the cart as I did.

I couldn't get the dear child to lie down or leave go of me, and indeed I
hadn't the heart to try, so I stepped out on the footboard with her
holding round my neck. They all set up a laugh when they see us, and one
chuckle-headed Joskin (that I hated for it) made the bidding, "Tuppence
for her!"

"Now, you country boobies," says I, feeling as if my heart was a heavy
weight at the end of a broken sashline, "I give you notice that I am a
going to charm the money out of your pockets, and to give you so much
more than your money's worth that you'll only persuade yourselves to draw
your Saturday night's wages ever again arterwards by the hopes of meeting
me to lay 'em out with, which you never will, and why not? Because I've
made my fortunes by selling my goods on a large scale for seventy-five
per cent. less than I give for 'em, and I am consequently to be elevated
to the House of Peers next week, by the title of the Duke of Cheap and
Markis Jackaloorul. Now let's know what you want to-night, and you shall
have it. But first of all, shall I tell you why I have got this little
girl round my neck? You don't want to know? Then you shall. She
belongs to the Fairies. She's a fortune-teller. She can tell me all
about you in a whisper, and can put me up to whether you're going to buy
a lot or leave it. Now do you want a saw? No, she says you don't,
because you're too clumsy to use one. Else here's a saw which would be a
lifelong blessing to a handy man, at four shillings, at three and six, at
three, at two and six, at two, at eighteen-pence. But none of you shall
have it at any price, on account of your well-known awkwardness, which
would make it manslaughter. The same objection applies to this set of
three planes which I won't let you have neither, so don't bid for 'em.
Now I am a going to ask her what you do want." (Then I whispered, "Your
head burns so, that I am afraid it hurts you bad, my pet," and she
answered, without opening her heavy eyes, "Just a little, father.") "O!
This little fortune-teller says it's a memorandum-book you want. Then
why didn't you mention it? Here it is. Look at it. Two hundred
superfine hot-pressed wire-wove pages--if you don't believe me, count
'em--ready ruled for your expenses, an everlastingly pointed pencil to
put 'em down with, a double-bladed penknife to scratch 'em out with, a
book of printed tables to calculate your income with, and a camp-stool to
sit down upon while you give your mind to it! Stop! And an umbrella to
keep the moon off when you give your mind to it on a pitch-dark night.
Now I won't ask you how much for the lot, but how little? How little are
you thinking of? Don't be ashamed to mention it, because my
fortune-teller knows already." (Then making believe to whisper, I kissed
her,--and she kissed me.) "Why, she says you are thinking of as little
as three and threepence! I couldn't have believed it, even of you,
unless she told me. Three and threepence! And a set of printed tables
in the lot that'll calculate your income up to forty thousand a year!
With an income of forty thousand a year, you grudge three and sixpence.
Well then, I'll tell you my opinion. I so despise the threepence, that
I'd sooner take three shillings. There. For three shillings, three
shillings, three shillings! Gone. Hand 'em over to the lucky man."

As there had been no bid at all, everybody looked about and grinned at
everybody, while I touched little Sophy's face and asked her if she felt
faint, or giddy. "Not very, father. It will soon be over." Then
turning from the pretty patient eyes, which were opened now, and seeing
nothing but grins across my lighted grease-pot, I went on again in my
Cheap Jack style. "Where's the butcher?" (My sorrowful eye had just
caught sight of a fat young butcher on the outside of the crowd.) "She
says the good luck is the butcher's. Where is he?" Everybody handed on
the blushing butcher to the front, and there was a roar, and the butcher
felt himself obliged to put his hand in his pocket, and take the lot. The
party so picked out, in general, does feel obliged to take the lot--good
four times out of six. Then we had another lot, the counterpart of that
one, and sold it sixpence cheaper, which is always wery much enjoyed.
Then we had the spectacles. It ain't a special profitable lot, but I put
'em on, and I see what the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going to take
off the taxes, and I see what the sweetheart of the young woman in the
shawl is doing at home, and I see what the Bishops has got for dinner,
and a deal more that seldom fails to fetch 'em 'up in their spirits; and
the better their spirits, the better their bids. Then we had the ladies'
lot--the teapot, tea-caddy, glass sugar-basin, half-a-dozen spoons, and
caudle-cup--and all the time I was making similar excuses to give a look
or two and say a word or two to my poor child. It was while the second
ladies' lot was holding 'em enchained that I felt her lift herself a
little on my shoulder, to look across the dark street. "What troubles
you, darling?" "Nothing troubles me, father. I am not at all troubled.
But don't I see a pretty churchyard over there?" "Yes, my dear." "Kiss
me twice, dear father, and lay me down to rest upon that churchyard grass
so soft and green." I staggered back into the cart with her head dropped
on my shoulder, and I says to her mother, "Quick. Shut the door! Don't
let those laughing people see!" "What's the matter?" she cries. "O
woman, woman," I tells her, "you'll never catch my little Sophy by her
hair again, for she has flown away from you!"