in the evening's gratification to strike the balance, and then make
haste to begin a new score.




TWO KINDS OF HONESTY.


Some few years ago, there resided in Long Acre an eccentric old Jew,
named Jacob Benjamin: he kept a seed shop, in which he likewise carried
on--not a common thing, we believe, in London--the sale of meal, and had
risen from the lowest dregs of poverty, by industry and self-denial,
till he grew to be an affluent tradesman. He was, indeed, a rich man;
for as he had neither wife nor child to spend his money, nor kith nor
kin to borrow it of him, he had a great deal more than he knew what to
do with. Lavish it on himself he could not, for his early habits stuck
to him, and his wants were few. He was always clean and decent in his
dress, but he had no taste for elegance or splendour in any form, nor
had even the pleasures of the table any charms for him; so that, though
he was no miser, his money kept on accumulating, whilst it occurred to
him now and then to wonder what he should do with it hereafter. One
would think he need not have wondered long, when there were so many
people suffering from the want of what he abounded in; but Mr Benjamin,
honest man, had his crotchets like other folks. In the first place, he
had less sympathy with poverty than might have been expected,
considering how poor he had once been himself; but he had a theory, just
in the main, though by no means without its exceptions--that the
indigent have generally themselves to thank for their privations.
Judging from his own experience, he believed that there was bread for