five shillings and two-pence.’—‘Well done, my good boy,’ returned she, ‘I knew you would touch them off. Between ourselves, three pounds five shillings and two-pence is no bad day’s work. Come, let us have it then.’—‘I have brought back no money,’ cried Moses again. ‘I have laid it all out in a bargain, and here it is,’ pulling out a bundle from his breast: ‘here they are; a groce of green spectacles, with silver rims and shagreen cases.’—‘A groce of green spectacles!’ repeated my wife in a faint voice. ‘And you have parted with the Colt, and brought us back nothing but a groce of green paltry spectacles!’—‘Dear mother,’ cried the boy, ‘why won’t you listen to reason? I had them a dead bargain, or I should not have bought them. The silver rims alone will sell for double money.’—‘A fig for the silver rims,’ cried my wife, in a passion: ‘I dare swear they won’t sell for above half the money at the rate of broken silver, five shillings an ounce.’—‘You need be under no uneasiness,’ cried I, ‘about selling the rims; for they are not worth six-pence, for I perceive they are only copper varnished over.’—‘What,’ cried my wife, ‘not silver, the rims not silver!’ ‘No,’ cried I, ‘no more silver than your saucepan,’—‘And so,’ returned she, ‘we have parted with the Colt, and have only got a groce of green spectacles, with copper rims and shagreen cases! A murrain take such trumpery. The blockhead has been imposed upon, and should have known his company better.’—‘There, my dear,’ cried I, ‘you are wrong, he should not have known them at all.’—‘Marry, hang the idea,’ returned she, ‘to bring me such stuff, if I had them, I would throw them in the fire.’ ‘There again you are wrong, my dear,’ cried I; ‘for though they be copper, we will keep them by us, as copper spectacles, you know, are better than nothing.’