"When I see the wife, instead of the husband, I have no difficulty in making up my mind--though the signs about the women are so numerous and minute, that it would be hard to explain them. If one wears a check-apron and sports a calico dress, I know that a 'travelling merchant' has been in the neighborhood; and if he has succeeded in making a reasonable number of sales, I am certain that he has given her such a taste for buying, that I can sell her anything at all: for purchasing cheap goods, to a woman, is like sipping good liquor, to a man--she soon acquires the appetite, and thenceforward it is insatiable. "I have some customers who have a _passion_ for clocks. There is a man on this road, who has one for every room in his house; and I have another with me now--with a portrait of General Jackson in the front--which I expect to add to his stock. There is a farmer not far from here, with whom I have 'traded' clocks every year since I first entered the neighborhood--always receiving about half the value of the article I sell, in money, 'to boot.' There are clock-fanciers, as well as fanciers of dogs and birds; and I have known cases, in which a man would have two or three time-pieces in his house, and not a pair of shoes in the family! But such customers are rare--as they ought to be; and the larger part of our trade is carried on, with people who begin to feel the necessity of regularity--to whom the sun has ceased to be a sufficient guide--and who have acquired some notions of elegance and comfort. And we seldom encounter the least trouble in determining, by the general appearance of the place, whether the occupant has arrived at that stage of refinement." We perceive that the principal study of the peddler is human nature; and though he classifies the principles of his experience, more especially with reference to the profits of his trade, his rapid observation of minor traits and indications, is a talent which might be useful in many pursuits, besides clock-peddling. And, accordingly, we discover that, even after he has abandoned the occupation, and ceased to be a bird of passage, he never fails to turn his learning to a good account.