There lived in Newburyport at that time a Mr. Law, who was a rum
seller, and I had spent many a shilling at his bar; he proposed to me
that he would purchase some tools, and I could start a bindery on my
own account, paying him by installments. He did so; and I thought it
an act of great kindness then, and for some time afterward, till I
found he had received pay from me for tools he had never paid for
himself, and I was dunned for the account he had failed to settle. He
even borrowed seventy-five dollars from me after I signed the pledge,
which has never been repaid. "Such is life."
Despite all that had occurred, my good name was not so far gone but
that I might have succeeded, by the aid of common industry and
attention, in my business. I was a good workman, and found no
difficulty in procuring employment, and, I have not the slightest
doubt, should have succeeded in my endeavor to get on in the world but
for the unhappy love of stimulating drinks, and my craving for society.
I was now my own master; all restraint was removed, and, as might be
expected, I did as I pleased in my own shop. I became careless, was
often in the barroom when I should have been at my bindery, and instead
of spending my evenings at home in reading or conversation, they were
almost invariably passed in the company of the rum bottle, which became
almost my sole household deity.
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