Excerpt from The Two Apprentices: A Tale for Youth

The cuckoo shouted from the elm-trees, and the blackbirds sang in the pear-tree boughs; and the sun shone, and the bells began to ring; and the public houses began to fill with farmers, clamouring for their breakfasts; andthe inhabitants of the streets in which the cattle and horse-fairs were held, left their lower window-shutters closed; and jockeys began to crack off their steeds, and farmers began to handle prime stock, and the Fair was in active operation. The morning went on; the jockey's business slackened the fat stock and the lean stock had found pur chasers and the more vulgar part of the business drew to an end. In the meantime, the booths and the stalls had arranged their wares. Thomas Rigley, staymaker, of titechapel, hung out his corsets, in opposition to Stephen Udal, the old accredited staymaker of the town, and laughed in his sleeve at the old-fashioned cut of things which had been made out of London. James Ford, the Sheffield cutler, displayed his knives and razors in shining order while Moses Birch, the town-cutler, assured the world around him, in a loud voice, that his wares were made to cut, and not, like some other folk's, only to sell. Morgan o'grady exhibited horrid things in spirits, and counselled all loving parents, in his little printed papers, which flew about like leaves in autumn, to purchase for their children a pennyworth of his famous worm-gingerbread; and never since people trod upon soling leather, had been seen such tempting rows of shoes as those of Jonas Solem and the seven shoemakers of the town, who now, for the first time in their lives, agreed all together in the declaration. That if people wanted to buy shoes no better than if made of paper, they must buy them from the Stafford.

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