Page:Autobiography of William Love, P.C..pdf/36

36 quite happy looking, with her baby in her lap. This is a place where a Packman has a good chance of effecting a sale. In one place the Packman sees proud stuck-up persons, who contemptuously turn up their noses at him as if they were somebody. Poor helpless creatures, thinks the Packman as he turns away, you could not eke out existence even at the pack. How lucky it was for you that your father was born before you, or many of you might be in the poorhouse. In another place he is met with the utmost frankness, and, if in the country, he is supposed to be able to tell them all the news. During the war the usual salutation was, come awa man an gae us your crack, what's the news about the Rushians? Whenever I enter a house and see all in confusion, the breakfast dishes standing unwashed at dinner time, and a dirty slovenly wife, I know that self created poverty is there, and I spend very little time in such a “staun.” On the contrary where I find cleanliness, I find economy, and consequently a little spare cash, and there I can, generally, effect a sale. In short the scenes and phases of character are like “Highlandmen’s gartans,” no two are exactly the same.

I think Shakspere must have travelled with the pack in his youth. I cannot imagine how he could otherwise have been such a powerful delineator of "human natur,” as Sam Slick calls it—by the bye Mr Slick was also a Packman—and then Burns, if he was not at one time a Packman, he