Originally published in 1865, the story Dr. Marigold was extremely successful, which Dickens s public performances of a play based it - fascinating and easy to read. Doctor (it is his given name) Marigold is a Cheap Jack or what we would call a street peddler. Doctor Marigold s fortunes reverse when he adopts a deaf and mute girl whose mother is dead and whose stepfather, owner of a traveling circus, beats her. This brief short story is a first person account of the life of a Cheap-Jack , a kind of salesman or barker at fairs, who sells cheap, everyday items to the poor. Dickens clearly is in love with the typical non-stop patter or auctioneer s song that these men engaged in, and samples of these day-long chants make up much of the book. The story that moves all this forward is the man s love for his wife, daughter, and granddaughter. Dickens does his usual masterful job of pulling at your heartstrings and bringing everything to a good tear-jerking, happy ending.