Cheap Jack Zita

by S. Baring-Gould

'Hold there, you Cheap Jack girl!' shouted a broad-shouldered man, coming up and laying his hand on the bit. 'We have taken this conveyance for the Union. It is confiscated.'

'Whether taken and confiscated I cannot say,' said Zita. 'But I know I have paid ten pounds to have it untaken and set at liberty. Return my ten sovereigns if you take from me my van.'

'We have no ten sovereigns of yours.'

'Yes, you have. And a shame it is that you should rob a poor Cheap Jack girl. Not that she belongs to the general public, save and deliver us!—but she is a working girl, and poor.'

'We have had no money of yours, and we requisition the van. We want to load it in Ely. It will serve our purpose better than a waggon.'

'You shall not have it,' replied Zita. 'Fair trade is fair trade, and he that will not deal honourably I will run through, and leave the button sticking between his shoulders, and that will spoil a good weskit.'

The man sprang back as she threatened him with one of the foils.

'I will tell you what it is,' said Zita; 'you will not believe me till I have made an example of one of you.'

'Where is your ten pounds?' asked Pip Beamish, who had descended from the waggon.

'Ay,' said several of those who stood round; 'that is what we should uncommon like to know.'