280 MAKING ALL SAFE. 



greenish, greyish, half-squinting, wholly suspicious 

 lookin^: o<2:les ! Besides, there is a meanness in the 

 thing, a kind of low petty-larceny sort of cheating 

 that disgusts one. Not but that I give liini all credit 

 for being wilHng to impose on me to any amount if 

 he could ; Init what I hate the fellow for is, cheating 

 for so small a consideration ! That man's soul would 

 never be "above buttons." 



To sum up the whole, I allow horse-dealers to be 

 roguish enough : they know that in a general way I 

 think them so ; but my bootmaker, tailor, butcher, 

 and baker know I think them so too, and never did 

 trust to their honour ; and lest they should bring the 

 joke against me, I bring it against myself. Since the 

 partial abolishment of confinement for debt took place, 

 they won't trust to mine : they are quite right : I be- 

 gan the game by never trusting to them, and, what 

 is more, please God I never will. One thing I have 

 found from their not trusting me — that at the end of 

 the week two-thirds of everything do for the same 

 family that used to be booked to my account when 

 my bills were paid quarterly, or, I must allow oftener, 

 half-yearly. Very odd this ; for of course these ho- 

 nourables furnished all that was put do^vn in the bills. 

 But if, as some people say, all tradesmen are more 

 honest than horse-dealers, then what out-and-out su- 

 perfine double-refined XXX rascals all horse-dealers 

 must be ! As, however, I know this is not the case, 

 why in that case the true case is this : if you purchase 

 with judgment, you will do, buy of whom you may : 

 if you do not, buy of whom you may or what you 

 may, in that case your case will be in the wrong box. 

 We will now bid adieu to A. and B. and their horses, 

 whom I have only introduced to show why men know- 



