claim for my father any peculiar quality in this respect, for I have
often observed that many of those who (like giddy-headed horsemen
that raise a great dust, and scamper as if the highway were too
narrow for their eccentric courses, before they are fairly seated in
the saddle, but who afterward drive as directly at their goals as
the arrow parting from the bow), most indulge their sympathies at
the commencement of their careers, are the most apt toward the close
to get a proper command of their feelings, and to reduce them within
the bounds of common sense and prudence. Before five-and-twenty, my
father was as exemplary and as constant a devotee of Plutus as was
then to be found between Ratcliffe Highway and Bridge Street:--I
name these places in particular, as all the rest of the great
capital in which he was born is known to be more indifferent to the
subject of money.

My ancestor was just thirty, when his master, who like himself was a
bachelor, very unexpectedly, and a good deal to the scandal of the
neighborhood, introduced a new inmate into his frugal abode, in the
person of an infant female child. It would seem that some one had
been speculating on his stock of weakness too, for this poor,
little, defenceless, and dependent being was thrown upon his care,
like Tom himself, through the vigilance of the parish officers.
There were many good-natured jokes practised on the prosperous
fancy-dealer, by the more witty of his neighbors, at this sudden
turn of good fortune, and not a few ill-natured sneers were given
behind his back; most of the knowing ones of the vicinity finding a
stronger likeness between the little girl and all the other
unmarried men of the eight or ten adjoining streets, than to the
worthy housekeeper who had been selected to pay for her support. I
have been much disposed to admit the opinions of these amiable