The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1891-12-24
DOCTOR MARIGOLD
A Christmas Story by Charles
Dickens.

lam Cheap Jack, and my own fathers
name was Willum Marigold. 1t was in
his lifetime supposed by some that his
name was William, but my own father
always consistently said, mo, it was
Willum." On which point content N.Y.
self with looking at the argument this
way: Ii a man is not allowed to know
his own name in a free country, how
much is he allowed to know in land of
slavery? AS to looking at the argument
through the medium of the register,
Willum Marigold come into the world
before registers come up much-and
went out of it too. They wouldn't have
been greatly in his line, neither, if they
had CHANGED to come up before him.
was born on the queens highway,
but it was the kings at that time. A
doctor was fetched to my own mother
by my own father, when it took place
on common; and in consequence of his
being a very kind gentleman, and ac-
cepting no fee but tea tray, I was
named Doctor, out of gratitude and
compliment to him. There you have
me--Doctor Marigold.
am at present middle aged man of
broadish build, in cords, leggins and
sleeved waistcoat, the strings of which
is always gone behind. Repair them
how you will, they go like fiddle strings.
You have been to the theater, and you
have seen one of the violin players screw
up his violin, after listening to it as if
1t had been whispering the secret to him
that it feared it was out of order. and
then you have heard it snap. That's as
exactly similar to my waistcoat as a
waistcoat and violin can be like one
another.
am partial to white hat, and like
q shawl round my neck wore loose and
easy. Sitting down is my favorite pos
ture. 1t have taste in point of per-
sonal jewelry it is mother-of-pearl but
tons. There you have me again as large
as life.
The doctor having accepted tea tray,
you'll guess that my father was Cheap
Jack before me. You are right He
was. 1t was pretty tray. 1t repre-
sented large lady going along a SER
pentining up hill gravel walk to attend a
little church. Two swans had likewise
come astray with the same intentions.
When call her large lady I don't mean
In point of breadth, for there she fell be-
low my views, but she more than made
1t up in height; her height and slimness
was--in short the height of both.
l often saw that tray after I was the
innocently smiling cause Tor more likely
screeching one) of the doctors standing
it upon table against the wall in his
consulting room. Whenever my own
father and mother were in that part of
the country used to put my head q
have heard my own mother say it was
haxen curls at that time, though you
wouldn't know an old hearth broom from
it now till you come to the handle and
found it wasn't me) in at the doctors
door, and the doctor was always glad to
see me, and said, "Aha, my brother prac-
titioneri Come in, little M. d. How
are your inclinations as to sixpence?'
You can't go on forever you'll find,
nor yet could my father nor yet my
mother. If you don't go off as a whole
when you are about due you are liable
to go off in part, and two to one your
heads the part. Gradually my father
went off his and my mother went off
hers. 1t was in harmless way, but it
put out the family where I boarded
them. The old couple, though retired,
got to be wholly and solely devoted to
the Cheap Jack business and were
always selling the family off. When
ever the cloth was laid for dinner my
father began rafting the plates and
dishes, as we do in our line when we
put up crockery for bid, only he had
lost the trick of it and mostly let 'em
drop and broke 'em. AS the old lady
had been used to sit in the cart and
hand the articles out one by one to the
old gentleman on the footboard to sell,
just in the same way she handed him
every item of the family property, and
they disposed of it in their own imagi-
nations from morning to night. At last
the old gentleman, lying bedridden in
the same room with the old lady, cries
out in the old patterfuent, after having
been silent for two days and nights:
''Now, here, my jolly companions,
every one-Which the Nightingale club
in village was held, At the sign of the
Cabbage and Shears, Where the singers
no doubt would have greatly excelled,
But for want of taste, voices and ears
now, here, my jolly companions, every
one, is a working model of a used up old
Cheap Jack, without tooth in his head
and with pain in every bone, so like
life that it would be Just as good if it