I often saw that tray after I was the
innocently smiling cause (or more likely
screeching one) of the. doctor's standing
it upon a table against the wall in his
consulting room. Whenever my own
father and mother were in that part of
the country I used to put my head (I
have heard my own mother say it was
flaxen curls at that time, though you
wouldn't know an old hearth broom from
it now till you come to the handle and
found it wasn't me) in at the doctor's
door, and the doctor was alwTays glad to
see me, and said, "Aha, my brother prac
titioner! Come in, little M. D. How
are your inclinations as to sixpence?"
You can't go on forever you'll find,
nor yet could my father nor yet my
mother. If yon don't go off as, a whole
when you are about due you are liable
to go oi m part, ana two to one your
head's the part. Gradually my father
went off - his and my mother went off
hers. It was in a harmless way, hut it
putv out the family where I boariSed
them. The old couple, though- retired,
got to be wholly and solely devoted to
the Cheap Jack business and were
always selling the family off. "WTien
ever the cloth was laid for dinner my
father began rattling the plates and
dishes, as we do in our line when we
put up crockery for a bid, only he had
lost the trick of it and mostly let 'em
drop and broke 'em. As the old lady
had been used to sit in the cart and
hand the articles out one by one to the
old gentleman on the footboard to sell,
just in the same way she handed him
every item of the family property, and
they disposed of it in their own imagi
nations from morning to night. 