I served an apprenticeship to a linen-draper, with
uncommon reputation for diligence and fidelity;
and at the age of three-and-twenty opened a shop
for myself with a large stock, and such credit
among all the merchants, who were acquainted with
my master, that I could command whatever was
imported curious or valuable. For five years I
proceeded with success proportionate to close application
and untainted integrity; was a daring bidder at every
sale; always paid my notes before they were due,
and advanced so fast in commercial reputation, that
I was proverbially marked out as the model of young
traders, and every one expected that a few years
would make me an alderman.
In this course of even prosperity, I was one day
persuaded to buy a ticket in the lottery. The sum
was inconsiderable, part was to be repaid though
fortune might fail to favour me, and therefore my
established maxims of frugality did not restrain me
from so trifling an experiment. The ticket lay
almost forgotten till the time at which every man's
fate was to be determined; nor did the affair even
then seem of any importance, till I discovered by
the publick papers that the numbers next to mine
had conferred the great prize.
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