beaten and ragged, leaning asleep against the muddy cart-wheel, it give
me such heart that I gained a greater heighth of reputation than ever,
and I put Pickleson down (by the name of Mim's Travelling Giant otherwise
Pickleson) for a fypunnote in my will.

This happiness went on in the cart till she was sixteen year old. By
which time I began to feel not satisfied that I had done my whole duty by
her, and to consider that she ought to have better teaching than I could
give her. It drew a many tears on both sides when I commenced explaining
my views to her; but what's right is right, and you can't neither by
tears nor laughter do away with its character.

So I took her hand in mine, and I went with her one day to the Deaf and
Dumb Establishment in London, and when the gentleman come to speak to us,
I says to him: "Now I'll tell you what I'll do with you, sir. I am
nothing but a Cheap Jack, but of late years I have laid by for a rainy
day notwithstanding. This is my only daughter (adopted), and you can't
produce a deafer nor a dumber. Teach her the most that can be taught her
in the shortest separation that can be named,--state the figure for
it,--and I am game to put the money down. I won't bate you a single
farthing, sir, but I'll put down the money here and now, and I'll
thankfully throw you in a pound to take it. There!" The gentleman
smiled, and then, "Well, well," says he, "I must first know what she has
learned already. How do you communicate with her?" Then I showed him,
and she wrote in printed writing many names of things and so forth; and
we held some sprightly conversation, Sophy and me, about a little story
in a book which the gentleman showed her, and which she was able to read.
"This is most extraordinary," says the gentleman; "is it possible that
you have been her only teacher?" "I have been her only teacher, sir," I
says, "besides herself." "Then," says the gentleman, and more acceptable