others in their follies, with a view to his own advantage, and the
experience of fifty years had rendered him so expert in the
practices of his calling, that it was seldom he struck out a new
vein in his mine, without finding himself rewarded for the
enterprise, by a success that was fully equal to his expectations,

"Tom," he said one day to his apprentice, when time had produced
confidence and awakened sympathies between them, "thou art a lucky
youth, or the parish officer would never have brought thee to my
door. Thou little knowest the wealth that is in store for thee, or
the treasures that are at thy command, if thou provest diligent, and
in particular faithful to my interests." My provident grandfather
never missed an occasion to throw in a useful moral, notwithstanding
the general character of veracity that distinguished his commerce.
"Now, what dost think, lad, may be the amount of my capital?"

My ancestor in the male line hesitated to reply, for, hitherto, his
ideas had been confined to the profits; never having dared to lift
his thoughts as high as that source from which he could not but see
they flowed in a very ample stream; but thrown upon himself by so
unexpected a question, and being quick at figures, after adding ten
per cent. to the sum which he knew the last year had given as the
net avail of their joint ingenuity, he named the amount, in answered
to the interrogatory.

My maternal grandfather laughed in the face of my direct lineal
ancestor.

"Thou judgest, Tom," he said, when his mirth was a little abated,
"by what thou thinkest is the cost of the actual stock before thine