Roundabout Papers - Penn State University

Thackerayence known. It was in Paris I saw this man. Where elsehave I not seen him? In the Roman Ghetto—at the Gateof David, in his fathers’ once imperial city. The man Imean was an itinerant vender and purchaser of wardrobes—whatyou call an … Enough! You know his name.On his left shoulder hung his bag; and he held in thathand a white hat, which I am sure he had just purchased,and which was the cause of the grief whichsmote his noble features. Of course I cannot particularizethe sum, but he had given too much for that hat. Hefelt he might have got the thing for less money. It wasnot the amount, I am sure; it was the principle involved.He had given fourpence (let us say) for that whichthreepence would have purchased. He had been done:and a manly shame was upon him, that he, whose energy,acuteness, experience, point of honor, should havemade him the victor in any mercantile duel in which heshould engage, had been overcome by a porter’s wife,who very likely sold him the old hat, or by a studentwho was tired of it. I can understand his grief. Do Iseem to be speaking of it in a disrespectful or flippantway? Then you mistake me. He had been outwitted. Hehad desired, coaxed, schemed, haggled, got what hewanted, and now found he had paid too much for hisbargain. You don’t suppose I would ask you to laugh atthat man’s grief? It is you, clumsy cynic, who are disposedto sneer, whilst it may be tears of genuine sympathyare trickling down this nose of mine. What doyou mean by laughing? If you saw a wounded soldier onthe field of battle, would you laugh? If you saw a ewerobbed of her lamb, would you laugh, you brute? It isyou who are the cynic, and have no feeling: and yousneer because that grief is unintelligible to you whichtouches my finer sensibility. The old-clothes’-man hadbeen defeated in one of the daily battles of his mostinteresting, chequered, adventurous life.Have you ever figured to yourself what such a lifemust be? The pursuit and conquest of twopence mustbe the most eager and fascinating of occupations. Wemight all engage in that business if we would. Do notwhist-players, for example, toil, and think, and losetheir temper over sixpenny points? They bring study,281