walked
back to the inn, and sat down in the tap. The two men next to me were
hawkers; one carried a large pack of dimities and calicoes, and the
other a box full of combs, needles, tapes, scissors, knives, and
mock-gold trinkets. I entered into conversation with them, and, as I
again stood treat, I soon was very intimate. They told me what their
profits were, and how they contrived to get on, and I thought, for a
rambling life, it was by no means an unpleasant one; so having obtained
all the information I required, I went back to town, took out a hawker's
licence, for which I paid two guineas, and purchasing at a shop, to which
they gave me a direction, a pretty fair quantity of articles in the tape
and scissor line, off I set once more on my travels. I took the north
road this time, and picked up a very comfortable subsistence, selling
my goods for a few halfpence here and a few halfpence there, at the
cottages as I passed by; but I soon found out, that without a newspaper,
I was not a confirmed hawker, and the more radical the newspaper the
better. A newspaper will pay half the expenses of a hawker, if he can
read. At every house, particularly every small hedge ale-house, he is
received, and placed in the best corner of the chimney, and has his board
and lodging, with the exception of what he drinks, gratis, if he will
pull out the newspaper and read it to those around him who cannot read,
particularly if he can explain what is unintelligible. Now I became a
great politician, and, moreover, a great radical, for such were the
politics of all the lower classes. I lived well, slept well, and sold
my wares very fast. I did not take more than three shillings in the
day, yet, as two out of the three were clear profit, I did pretty well.
However, a little accident happened which obliged me to change my
profession, or at least, the nature of the articles which I dealt in."

"What was that?"

"A mere trifle. I had arrived late at a small ale-house, had put up my
pack, which was in a painted deal box, on the table in the tap-room, and
was very busy, after reading a paragraph in the newspaper, making a fine
speech, which I always found was received with great applause, and many
shakes of the hand, as a prime good fellow--a speech about community of
rights, agrarian division, and the propriety of an equal distribution of
property, proving that, as we were all born alike, no one had a right to
have more property than his neighbou