careful, and so forth; with the addition of more intelligence,
invention, and enterprise, than are usually found in Englishmen of
the same rank. But the Dublin tradesmen _pro tempore_ are a class by
themselves: they begin without capital, buy stock upon credit, in
hopes of making large profits, and, in the same hopes, sell upon
credit.

Now, if the credit they can obtain is longer than that which they are
forced to give, they go on and prosper; if not, they break, become
bankrupts, and sometimes, as bankrupts, thrive. By such men, of
course, every _short cut_ to fortune is followed: whilst every habit,
which requires time to prove its advantage, is disregarded; nor, with
such views, can a character for _punctuality_ have its just value.
In the head of a man, who intends to be a tradesman to-day, and a
gentleman to-morrow, the ideas of the honesty and the duties of a
tradesman, and of the honour and the accomplishments of a gentleman,
are oddly jumbled together, and the characteristics of both are lost
in the compound.

He will _oblige_ you, but he will not obey you; he will do you a
favour, but he will not do you _justice_; he will do _anything to
serve you_, but the particular thing you order he neglects; he asks
your pardon, for he would not, for all the goods in his warehouse,
_disoblige_ you; not for the sake of your custom, but he has a
particular regard for your family. Economy, in the eyes of such a
tradesman, is, if not a mean vice, at least a shabby virtue, of which
he is too polite to suspect his customers, and to which he is proud of
proving himself superior. Many London tradesmen, after making their
thousands and their tens of thousands, feel pride in still continuing
to live like plain men of business; but from the moment a Dublin