y a little baccy with; I love
baccy, dear, more by token that it comes from the plantations to which
the blessed woman was sent.'

[Picture: All safe with me]

'What's a tanner?' said I.

'Lor! don't you know, dear? Why, a tanner is sixpence; and, as you were
talking just now about crowns, it will be as well to tell you that those
of our trade never calls them crowns, but bulls; but I am talking
nonsense, just as if you did not know all that already, as well as
myself; you are only shamming--I'm no trap, dear, nor more was the
blessed woman in the book. Thank you, dear--thank you for the tanner; if
I don't spend it, I'll keep it in remembrance of your sweet face. What,
you are going?--well, first let me whisper a word to you. If you have
any clies to sell at any time, I'll buy them of you; all safe with me; I
never peach, and scorns a trap; so now, dear, God bless you! and give you
good luck! Thank you for your pleasant company, and thank you for the
tanner.'

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

THE TANNER--THE HOTEL--DRINKING CLARET--LONDON JOURNAL--NEW
FIELD--COMMONPLACENESS--THE THREE INDIVIDUALS--BOTHERATION--BOTH FRANK
AND ARDENT

'Tanner!' said I musingly, as I left the bridge; 'Tanner! what can the
man who cures raw skins by means of a preparation of oak bark and other
materials have to do with the name which these fakers, as they call
themselves, bestow on the smallest silver coin in these dominions?
Tanner! I can't trace the connection between the man of bark and the
silver coin, unless journeymen tanners are in the habit of working for
sixpence a day. But I have it,' I continued, flourishing my hat over my
head, 'tanner, in this instance, is not an English word.' Is it not
surprising that the language of Mr. Petulengro and of Tawno Chikno is
continually coming to my assistance whenever I appear to be at a nonplus
with respect to the derivation of crabbed words? I have made out crabbed
words in AEschylus by means of the speech of Chikno and Petulengro, and
even in my Biblical researches I have derived no slight assistance from
it. It appears to be a kind of picklock, an open sesame, Tanner--Tawno!
the one is but a modification of the other; they were originally
identical, and have still much the same signification. Tanner, in the
language of the apple-woman, meaneth the smallest of English silver
coins; and Tawno, in the language of the Petulengres, though bestowed
upon the big