"Halloo! what have you got there?" says the miser to the countryman. "Well, daddy, a little of all sorts; potatoes, cabbages, turnips, parsnips, and so on. Won't you look at 'em?" At this, the old miser would begin to fumble over the vegetables, pocket a potato, an onion, turnip, or-- "Ah, yes, they are good enough, but we poor creatures can't afford to pay such prices as you ask; no, no--we must wait until they come down." The old miser would sneak into the house with his stolen vegetables, and the farmer would drive on. Then back would come the miser, and lay in ambush for another load, and thus, in course of a few hours, he would raise enough vegetables to give his household a dinner. Another "dodge" of this artful old dodger, was to take all the coppers he got (and, of course, a poor creature like him handled a great many), and then go abroad among the stores and trade off six for a fourpence, and when he had four fourpences, get a quarter of a dollar for them, and thus in getting a dollar, he made four per cent., by several hours' disgusting meanness and labor. But one day the old miser ran foul of a snag. A market-man had watched him for some time purloining his vegetables, and on the first of the year, sent in a bill of several dollars, for turnips, potatoes, parsnips, &c. The old miser, of course, refused to pay the bill, denying ever having had "the goods." But the countryman called, in _propria persona_, refreshed his memory, and added, that, if the bill was not footed on sight, he should prosecute him for _stealing!_ This made the old miser shake in his boots. He blustered for awhile; then reasoned the case; then plead poverty. But the purveyor in vegetables was not the man to be cabbaged in that way, and the old miser called him into his sitting-room, and ordered his son, a wild young scamp, to go up stairs and see if he could find five dollars in any of the drawers or boxes up there. The young man finally called out-- "Dad, which bag shall I take it out of, _the gold or silver_?" "Odd zounds!" bawled the old man--"the boy wants to let on I've got bags of gold and silver!" And so he had, many thousands of dollars in good gold and silver; he hobbled up stairs, got nine half dollars, and tried to get off fifty cents less than the countryman's bill; but the countryman was stubborn as a mule, and would not abate a farthing--so the old miser had to hobble up stairs and fetch down his fifty cents more, and the whole operation was like squeezing bear's grease from a pig's tail, or jerking out eye-teeth. The miser never waylaid the market-men again; and not long after this, he got a spurious dollar put upon him in one of his "exchanging" operations, and that wound up his penny shaving.