But we had peculiar advantages, which encouraged
us to hope, that we should by degrees supplant our
competitors. My father, by his profession, made
himself necessary in their affairs, for the sailor and
the chambermaid, he inquired out mortgages and
securities, and wrote bonds and contracts; and had
endeared himself to the old woman, who once rashly
lent an hundred pounds without consulting him, by
informing her, that her debtor, was on the point
of bankruptcy, and posting so expeditiously with
an execution, that all the other creditors were
defrauded.
To the squire he was a kind of steward, and had
distinguished himself in his office by his address in
raising the rents, his inflexibility in distressing the
tardy tenants, and his acuteness in setting the parish
free from burdensome inhabitants, by shifting
them of to some other settlement.
Business made frequent attendance necessary;
trust soon produced intimacy; and success gave a
claim to kindness; so that we had opportunity to
practise all the arts of flattery and endearment.
My mother, who could not support the thoughts
of losing any thing, determined, that all their
fortunes should centre in me; and, in the prosecution
of her schemes, took care to inform me that NOTHING
COST LESS THAN GOOD WORDS, and that it is comfortable
to leap into an estate which another has got.
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