they had all to a man been foiled. The Virginia farmer was proof against their strategy. In general, he was civil—but he could be stormy and tempestuous, especially if urged by a traveling merchant to purchase, when he had peremptorily refused. And so set had he become, that on more occasions than one, he had urged his wife never, in his absence, to purchase any article, especially not a clock. I am not certain that in terms he had forbidden her. But she knew his wishes; and being a good woman, she intended to act accordingly. The day we are speaking of Mr. M—— had gone to a neighboring town, a few miles distant, to transact some business; expecting, however, to return the same evening. Shortly after his departure, which was early, the pedler of whom we have already made mention drove up, with the hope of disposing of a clock. Whether he was apprised of the absence of the lord of the manor has not transpired; but he was not ignorant of the task before him. He had received ample information from several of the profession of the unlucky star that presided, when they made the experiment; and, moreover, they had predicted his similar ill success. “Never mind,” said he—“I’ll try my hand, and if Jasper C. fails it will be the very first time.” And Jasper C. was in truth no ordinary specimen of a Yankee. Whether from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, or Vermont, he scarcely knew himself, as in all those States his parents had lived—but in the limits of which one they happened to be, at the precise time he first opened his eyes on this mundane sphere, he never could quite ascertain. He had all the tact and shrewdness of the Codfish State, and all the hardness and impenetrability of the Granite State—and I may add, all the determination of a Green Mountain boy. If there was only a nook or angle where these States could unite, that would be the precise spot—the very sharpest point I mean—where Jasper C. had his beginning. But however these matters may be, he was a Yankee—and one of the “straightest sect”—a keen, sharp-sighted, ready-witted man, of some two or three and twenty. He was a great tactician at selling—no matter what was the article or commodity, he could always sell; and he delighted in nothing more than to follow hard upon a brother pedler, and to compare notes with him at the end of their common tour. Generally, Jasper could show more dollars taken in a given time than any brother pedler who traveled in the “Old Dominion.” He had some confidence, therefore, and he had a right to it. And, besides, his personal appearance was in his favor; but what was of more consequence, he was well-mannered. He was seldom put off his guard, and seldom betrayed into language which he had occasion to recall. Such was Jasper C——, the pedler, who made his appearance at the house of Mr. M——, at the time and under the circumstances already named.