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'And if you really believed in your things, the older man continued presently, 'as I am sure you did believe, then your old Dustman and Sweep and Lamplighter, your Woman of the Haystack and your Net of Stars and Star Train all these, for instance, must still be living, where you left them, waiting perhaps for your return to lead their fresh adventures.
With every degree of West longitude the fibre of the American grows harder. The Dustman Destiny sifting his cinders has his biggest mesh over the Pacific States. If charity and sympathy be to seek in the East, it is at a greater discount on the Slope. The only poor-house is the House of Correction. Perhaps San Francisco is one of the hardest, if not the hardest city in the world.
The dustman may dwell with his family in two rooms at three-and-sixpence per week; his equipment consists of a slop, corduroys, and a sou'-wester hat, which are sufficient to last many a day with little washing.
And now we may turn to the wages of dustmen, who are, it must be admitted, a most estimable class of men and most useful. I find that the London dustman earns more than an assistant master under the Salford School Board, and, besides his wages, he picks up many trifles.
He seats the creature at table, where he pronounces a grace that sounds like the scream of the man in the square that used to cry mackerel, flings his meat down his throat by shovelfuls, like a dustman loading his cart, and apparently without the most distant perception of what he is swallowing, then bleats forth another unnatural set of tones by way of returning thanks, stalks out of the room, and immerses himself among a parcel of huge worm-eaten folios that are as uncouth as himself!
Gent abaht babies. Where'd he better go?" The man addressed, however, who carried a bag of tools, did not stop. "You,'ear?" said the dustman, and urging his horse, passed on. "How rude!" thought Mr. Lavender. Something cold and wet was pressed against his hand, he felt a turmoil, and saw Blink moving round and round him, curved like a horseshoe, with a bit of string dangling from her white neck.
The outbreak of kindness is sometimes genuine on the part of the donors; but it is often merely surface-kindness, and the gifts are bestowed in a bitter and grudging spirit. Let me ask, What are the real feelings of a householder who is requested to hand out a present to a turncock or dustman whom he has never seen?
There is, in the first place, the professional dustman, who, having in the enthusiastic exercise of his delightful trade, laid hands upon property not strictly his own, is pursued, we presume, by the right owner, from whom he flies as fast as his crooked shanks will carry him.
Mewing of cats, screeching of owls, barking of dogs, drove the dustman away every time he came sneaking in. The stable-boys heard the horses pant, snort, and kick; to the bailiff it seemed as if sacks were being dragged about the granary; the dairy-maid declared it was precisely like the noise of churning; and the housekeeper heard, plainly enough, a sort of rummaging in the pantry.
The Dustman the German sleep-fairy appears and throws dust in their weary eyes. Together they sing their little evening hymn, and drop off to sleep locked in each other's arms. Then the heavens open, and down a shining staircase come the bright forms of angels, who group themselves round the sleeping children, and watch over their innocent slumbers until the break of day.
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