The sense of this
duty was paramount among the "Free and Frisky," and without it their
final cause would have vanished long ago, and therewith their formal
one.
None of the old-established folk of the blue blood of Springhaven,
such as the Tugwells, the Shankses, the Praters, the Bowleses, the
Stickfasts, the Blocks, or the Kedgers, would have anything to do
with this Association, which had formed itself among them, like
an anti-corn-law league, for the destruction of their rights and
properties. Its origin had been commercial, and its principles
aggressive, no less an outrage being contemplated than the purchase of
fish at low figures on the beach, and the speedy distribution of that
slippery ware among the nearest villages and towns. But from time
immemorial the trade had been in the hands of a few staunch factors,
who paid a price governed by the seasons and the weather, and sent
the commodity as far as it would go, with soundness, and the hope of
freshness. Springhaven believed that it supplied all London, and was
proud and blest in so believing. With these barrowmen, hucksters and
pedlars of fish, it would have no manifest dealing; but if the factors
who managed the trade chose to sell their refuse or surplus to them,
that was their own business. In this way perhaps, and by bargains on
the sly, these petty dealers managed to procure enough to carry on
their weekly enterprise, and for a certain good reason took a room and
court-yard handy to the Darling Arms, to discuss other people's business
and their own.
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