'
Mr Budgett was the son of a worthy couple, not exactly in poor, but in
rather difficult circumstances. He had little school education; but
his mother gave him a good religious training. From his earliest
intelligent years, he loved traffic. His first transaction was getting
a penny for a horse-shoe which he had found. Discovering that for a
half-penny he got six marbles, but for a penny fourteen, he bought
pennyworths and sold them in half-pennyworths to his companions, thus
realising a profit. Meeting an old woman with a basket of cucumbers,
he bought them, and by selling them again, realised ninepence. Truly
in his case the boy was father to the man. But, what was notable in
him, he would give away his accumulated profits all at once, in the
purchase of a hymn-book, or for the relief of some poor person. Even
then, it was not for sordid or selfish ends that he trafficked. In
these early years, his singular tact also came out. 'I remember,' he
said, 'about 1806 or 1807, a young man called on my mother, from Mr
D---- of Shepton, to solicit orders in the grocery trade. His
introduction and mode of treating my mother were narrowly watched by
me, particularly when she asked the price of several articles.
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