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Then the axe of the woodcutter echoes sharp and diligently in the forest; then the coal-merchants rejoice, because each shriek of Nature in her agony adds something to the price of coal per ton; then the peat-smoke spreads its aromatic fragrance through the atmosphere.

He ought to have known by this time that butchers, and bakers, and corn-chandlers, and coal-merchants will not supply their goods for nothing; and yet it always seemed as though he had expected that at this special period they would do so.

I may regret that I did not delve deeper into the mysteries of those foot-ball scores and discover, through them, the greater seats of learning. Perhaps I might have known then that not all their sons became coal-merchants and drank, and I might have gone much farther on that September day when first I set out into the world beyond the mountains.

The builders' labourers are rather better paid if their employment were not so intermittent with an average of from fourpence halfpenny to fivepence an hour. Carters, too, and vanmen employed by coal-merchants, builders, and other tradesmen in the town, are comparatively well off with constant work at eighteen or twenty shillings a week.

Some saw the advantage at once, knowing the high prices of single half-tons or hundredweights delivered in coal-merchants' carts; others would "let us know in a day or two," wanted time to consider the matter, being taken "unawares"; others, assured that nobody would undertake such a troublesome business without an eye to personal profit, but anxious not to offend my daughter, who was visiting each cottage, replied: "Oh yes, miss, if 'tis to do you any good"! Eventually, however, they were all satisfied and very grateful, appreciating the fact that the cartage was not charged for, and that they were getting much better coal than before at a lower price.

It is a very little street, of very little houses, most of them with very large brass plates like Miss Squilsby's. Coal-merchants, architects and surveyors, two surgeons, a solicitor, a dancing-master, and of course several house-agents, occupy the houses little two-storeyed edifices with little stucco porticoes.

I emerged from that prison to enter a new one, in the shape of a West-end boarding- school, where I became the drudge and scape-goat of rich citizens' daughters, heiresses presumptive to the scrapings of tallow-chandlers and coal-merchants, linen-drapers and cheesemongers. For six years I endured my fate patiently, uncomplainingly.

Then the axe of the woodcutter echoes sharp and diligently in the forest; then the coal-merchants rejoice because each shriek of Nature in her agony adds something to the price of coal per ton; then the peat-smoke spreads its aromatic fragrance through the atmosphere.

So that, by that one dishonest bargain, you picked your own pocket and insulted the Almighty. Would you dare to make an estimate of how many falsehoods in trade were yesterday told by hardware men, and clothiers, and fruit-dealers, and dry-goods establishments, and importers, and jewellers, and lumbermen, and coal-merchants, and stationers, and tobacconists?

It is a notable circumstance that in these later times, many Chuzzlewits, being unsuccessful in other pursuits, have, without the smallest rational hope of enriching themselves, or any conceivable reason, set up as coal-merchants; and have, month after month, continued gloomily to watch a small stock of coals, without in any one instance negotiating with a purchaser.