He will never fail to be esteemed the principal person concerned in the
shop, and in the trade, who is principally and most constantly found
there, acting at the head of every business; and be it a servant or a
partner, the master or chief loses himself extremely by the advances the
other makes of that kind; for, whenever they part again, either the
apprentice by being out of his time, or the partner by the expiration of
the articles of partnership, or by any other determination of their
agreement, the customers most certainly desire to deal with the man whom
they have so often been obliged by; and if they miss him, inquire after
and follow him.

It is true, the apprentice is the more dangerous of the two, because his
separation is supposed to be more certain, and generally sooner than the
partner; the apprentice is not known, and cannot have made his interest
among the buyers, but for perhaps a year, or a year and a half, before
his time expired: sooner than that he could not put himself in the way
of being known and observed; and then, when his time is out, he
certainly removes, unless he is taken into the shop as a partner, and
that, indeed, prolongs the time, and places the injury at a greater
distance, but still it makes it the more influencing when it comes; and
unless he is brought some how or other into the family, and becomes one
of the house, perhaps by marriage, or some other settled union with the
master, he never goes off without making a great chasm in the master's
affairs, and the more, by how much he has been more diligent and useful
in the trade, the wounds of which the master seldom if ever recovers.

If the partner were not an apprentice, but that they either came out of
their times together, or near it, or had a shop and business before, but
quitted it to come in, it may then be said that he brought part of the