His master's name was Mim, a wery hoarse man, and I knew him to speak to.
I went to that Fair as a mere civilian, leaving the cart outside the
town, and I looked about the back of the Vans while the performing was
going on, and at last, sitting dozing against a muddy cart-wheel, I come
upon the poor girl who was deaf and dumb. At the first look I might
almost have judged that she had escaped from the Wild Beast Show; but at
the second I thought better of her, and thought that if she was more
cared for and more kindly used she would be like my child. She was just
the same age that my own daughter would have been, if her pretty head had
not fell down upon my shoulder that unfortunate night.
To cut it short, I spoke confidential to Mim while he was beating the
gong outside betwixt two lots of Pickleson's publics, and I put it to
him, "She lies heavy on your own hands; what'll you take for her?" Mim
was a most ferocious swearer. Suppressing that part of his reply which
was much the longest part, his reply was, "A pair of braces." "Now I'll
tell you," says I, "what I'm a going to do with you. I'm a going to
fetch you half-a-dozen pair of the primest braces in the cart, and then
to take her away with me." Says Mim (again ferocious), "I'll believe it
when I've got the goods, and no sooner." I made all the haste I could,
lest he should think twice of it, and the bargain was completed, which
Pickleson he was thereby so relieved in his mind that he come out at his
little back door, longways like a serpent, and give us Shivery Shakey in
a whisper among the wheels at parting.
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