farther than they would if we had to pay the highest market price for every thing.  But, it often happens that what we gain here is lost in the eagerness we feel to sell whatever we have, especially when, from having walked and cried for a long time, we become much fatigued.  Almost every one complains that we ask too much for our things, if we happen to be one or two cents above what somebody has paid in market, where there are almost as many different prices as there are persons who sell.  And in consequence, almost every one tries to beat us down.

“It often happens that, after I have walked for hours and sold but very little, I have parted with my whole stock at cost to some two or three ladies, who would not have bought from me at all if they hadn’t known that they were making good bargains out of me; and this because I could not bear up any longer.  I think it very hard, sometimes, when ladies, who have every thing in plenty, take off nearly all my profits, after I have toiled through the hot sun for hours, or shivered in the cold of winter.  It is no doubt right enough for every one to be prudent, and buy things as low as possible; but it has never seemed to me as quite just for a rich lady to beat down a poor fish-woman, or strawberry-woman, a cent or two on a bunch or basket, when that very cent made, perhaps, one-third, or one-half of her profits.

“It was only yesterday that I stopped at a house to sell a bunch of fish.  The lady took a fancy to a nice bunch of small rock, for which I asked her twenty cents.  They had cost me just sixteen cents.  ‘Won’t you take three fips?’ she asked.  ’That leaves me too small a profit, madam,’ I replied.  ‘You want too much profit,’ she returned; ’I saw just such a bunch of fish in market yesterday for three fips.’  ‘Yes, but remember,’ I replied, ’that here are the fish at your door.  You neither have to send for them nor to bring them home yourself.’  ‘Oh, as to that,’ she answered, ’I have a waiter whose business it is to carry the marketing.  It is all the same to me.  So, if you expect to sell me your things, you must do it at the market prices.  I will give you three fips for that bunch of fish, and no more.’  I had walked a great deal, and sold but little.  I was tired, and half sick with a dreadful headache.  It was time for me to think about getting home.  So I said, ’Well, ma’am, I suppose you must take them, but it leaves me only a mere trifle for my profit.’  A servant standing by took the fish, and the lady handed me a quarter, and held out her hand for the change.  I first put into it a five cent piece.  She continued holding it out, until I searched about in ny pocket for a penny.  This I next placed in her hand.  ’So you’ve cheated me out of a cent at last,’ she said, half laughing and half in earnest; ‘you are a sad rogue.’  A little boy was standing by.  ‘Here, Charley,’ she said to him, ’is a penny I have just saved.  You can buy a candy with it.’

“As I turned away from the door of the large, beautiful house in which that lady lived, I felt something rising in my throat and choking me; I had bitter thoughts of all my kind.