Here was a shawls pawned for a few shillings by a poor woman whose intemperate husband threw the burden of supporting two young children upon her.
Next to it was a black coat belonging to a clerk, who had been out of employment for three months, and now was out of money also.

Here was a child's dress, pawned by the mother in dire necessity to save the child from starving.

There was a plain gold ring, snatched by a drunken husband from the finger of his poor wife, not to buy food, but to gratify his insatiable craving for drink.
Over this scene of confusion presided a little old man with blear eyes and wrinkled face, but with a sharp glance, fully alive to his own interests.

He was an Englishman born, but he had been forty years in America.

He will be remembered by those who have read "Paul the Peddler." Though nearly as poverty-stricken in appearance as his poorest customers, the old man was rich, if reports were true.