At last my uncle Tourlough, or, as the
English would call him, Charles, chancing to come to Scotland Road
along with his family, I was glad to accept an invitation to join
them which he gave me, and with them I have been ever since,
travelling about England and Wales and Scotland, helping my aunt
with the children, and driving much the same trade which she has
driven for twenty years past, which is not an unprofitable one."
"Would you have any objection to tell me all you do?"
"Why I sells needles, as I said before, and sometimes I buys things
of servants, and sometimes I tells fortunes."
"Do you ever do anything in the way of striopachas?"
"Oh no! I never do anything in that line; I would be burnt first.
I wonder you should dream of such a thing."
"Why surely it is not worse than buying things of servants, who no
doubt steal them from their employers, or telling fortunes, which
is dealing with the devil."
"Not worse? Yes, a thousand times worse; there is nothing so very
particular in doing them things, but striopachas - Oh dear!"
"It's a dreadful thing I admit, but the other things are quite as
bad; you should do none of them."
"I'll take good care that I never do one, and that is striopachas;
them other things I know are not quite right, and I hope soon to
have done wid them; any day I can shake them off and look people in
the face, but were I once to do striopachas I could never hold up
my head"
