'm
about to give it up.

_Myself_. Give it up! you must not think of such a thing.

_Tinker_. No, I can't bear to think of it, and yet I must; what's to be
done? How hard to be frightened to death, to be driven off the roads!

_Myself_. Who has driven you off the roads?

_Tinker_. Who! the Flaming Tinman.

_Myself_. Who is he?

_Tinker_. The biggest rogue in England, and the cruellest, or he
wouldn't have served me as he has done--I'll tell you all about it. I
was born upon the roads, and so was my father before me, and my mother
too; and I worked with them as long as they lived, as a dutiful child,
for I have nothing to reproach myself with on their account; and when my
father died I took up the business, and went his beat, and supported my
mother for the little time she lived; and when she died I married this
young woman, who was not born upon the roads, but was a small tradesman's
daughter, at Gloster. She had a kindness for me, and, notwithstanding
her friends were against the match, she married the poor tinker, and came
to live with him upon the roads. Well, young man, for six or seven years
I was the happiest fellow breathing, living just the life you described
just now--respected by everybody in this beat; when in an evil hour comes
this Black Jack, this Flaming Tinman, into these parts, driven as they
say out of Yorkshire--for no good you may be sure. Now there is no beat
will support two tinkers, as you doubtless know; mine was a good one, but
it would not support the flying tinker and myself, though if it would
have supported twenty it would have been all the same to the flying
villain, who'll brook no one but himself; so he presently finds me out,
and offers to fight me for the beat. Now, being bred upon the roads, I
can fight a little, that is with anything like my match, but I was not
going to fight him, who happens to be twice my size, and so I told him;
whereupon he knocks me down, and would have done me farther mischief had
not some men been nigh and prevented him; so he threatened to cut my
throat, and went his way. Well, I did not like such usage at all, and
was woundily frightened, and tried to keep as much out of his way as
possible, going anywhere but where I thought I was likely to meet him;
and sure enough for several months I contrived to keep out of his way. At
last somebody told me that he was gone back to Yorkshire, whereupon I was
glad at heart, and ventured to show myself