"You mean?"

"A leetle weak up here," explained the Tinker, tapping his forehead with the handle of the jack-knife. "His father was murdered the day afore he were born, d'ye see, which druv his poor mother out of her mind, which conditions is apt to make a man a leetle strange."

"Poor fellow!" said I, while the Tinker began his tap-tapping again.

"Are you hungry?" he inquired suddenly, glancing up at me with his hammer poised.

"Very hungry!" said I. Hereupon he set down his hammer, and, turning to a pack at his side, proceeded to extract therefrom a loaf of bread, a small tin of butter, and a piece of bacon, from which last he cut sundry slices with the jack-knife. He now lifted the hissing rashers from the pan to a tin plate, which he set upon the grass at my feet, together with the bread and the butter; and, having produced a somewhat battered knife and fork, handed them to me with another bright nod.

"You are very kind!" said I.

"Why, I'm a man as is fond o' company, y' see--especially of one who can think, and talk, and you have the face of both. I am--as you might say--a literary cove, being fond o' books, nov-els, and such like." And in a little while, the bacon being done to his liking, we sat down together, and began to eat.

"That was a strange song of yours," said I, after a while.

"Did you like it?" he inquired, with a quick tilt of his head.

"Both words and tune," I answered.

"I made the words myself," said the Tinker.

"And do you mean it?"

"Mean what?" asked the Tinker.

"That you would rather be a tinker than a king?"

"Why, to be sure I would," he rejoined. "Bein' a literary cove I know summat o' history, and a king's life weren't all lavender--not by no manner o' means, nor yet a bed o' roses."

"Yet there's much to be said for a king."

"Very little, I think," said the Tinker.

"A king has great advantages."

"Which he generally abuses," said the Tinker.

"There have been some great and noble kings."

"But a great many more bad 'uns!" said the Tinker.

"And then, look how often they got theirselves pisoned, or stabbed, or 'ad their 'eads chopped off! No--if you axes me, I prefer to tinker a kettle under a hedge."

"Then you are contented?"

"Not quite," he answered, his face falling; "me being a literary cove (as I think I've mentioned afore), it has always been my wish to be a scholar."

"Far better be a tinker," said I.

"Young fellow," said the Tinker, shaking his head reprovingly, "you're off the mark there--knowledge is power; why, Lord love my eyes and limbs! what's finer than to be able to read in the Greek and Latin?"

"To possess the capacity of earning an honest livelihood," said I.

"Why, I tell you," continued the Tinker, unheeding my remark, "I'd give this here left hand o' mine to be able to read the very words of such men as Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, Xenophon, and all the rest of 'em."

"There are numerous translations," said I.

"Ah, to be sure!" sighed the Tinker, "but then, they are translations."

"There are good translations as well as bad," said I.

"Maybe," returned the Tinker, "maybe, but a translation's only a echo, after all, however good it be." As he spoke, he dived into his pack and brought forth a book, which he handed to me. It was a smallish volume in battered leathern covers, and had evidently seen much long and hard service. Opening it at the title-page, I read:

Epictetus his ENCHIRIDION with Simplicius his COMMENT.

Made English from the Greek By George Stanhope, late Fellow Of King's College in Camb.

LONDON Printed for Richard Sare at Gray's Inn Gate in Holborn And Joseph Hindmarsh against the Exchange in Cornhill.

1649.

"You've read Epictetus, perhaps?" inquired the Tinker.

"I have."

"Not in the Greek, of course."

"Yes," said I, smiling, "though by dint of much labor."

The Tinker stopped chewing to stare at me wide-eyed, then swallowed his mouthful at one gulp.

"Lord love me!" he exclaimed, "and you so young, too!"

"No," said I; "I'm twenty-five."

"And Latin, now--don't tell me you can read the Latin."

"But I can't make a kettle, or even mend one, for that matter,"

said I.

"But you are a scholar, and it's a fine thing to be a scholar!"

"And I tell you again, it is better to be a tinker," said I.

"How so?"

"It is a healthier life, in the first place," said I.

"That, I can believe," nodded the Tinker.

"It is a happier life, in the second place."

"That, I doubt," returned the Tinker.