Early in The Vicar of Wakefield the Primroses, diminished by their loss of fortune but as yet untouched by real adversity, resolve up their heads2 among the gentry. To effect this end, their teenage son, Moses, is dispatched to sell the colt... at neighboring fair, and buy.., horse that would carry single or double upon an occasion, and make pretty appearance at church or upon visit (65). In part, Moses fulfills his mother's expectations that he will trade sharply; he sells the colt for good price. But he does not buy horse. Instead, he purchases a groce of green spectacles, with silver rims and shagreen cases (67), straps his purchase his back and comes slowly home on foot.. . sweating under the deal box (67). Everything about this story is delightfully allegorical, for Moses is twice deceived in his speculative purchase. Convinced by prowling sharper that the spectacles' silver rims are alone worth twice the total price he paid, he is soon undeceived by his mother: A fig for the silver rims... I dare swear they won't sell for above half the money at the rate of broken silver, five shillings an ounce (67). More painful still, his father soon notices that the rims are not silver at all, but only copper varnished over (68). Thus, journeying out atop his possessions but returning beneath them, Moses illustrates that in the world of matter and merchandising, the way up may be in fact the way down. Intending effect transaction that will permit the Primroses hold up [their] heads (65), he returns with his feet in the dust, looking, as his father remarks, like pedlar (67). The moral is comically clear: colt cannot be hurried into horse, but he who attempts such transformations may be colted. There is more moral still this story. For if colt cannot be hurried into horse with rapidity correspondent our desires, neither should colt be deflated into nothing at the collapse of our