6 PATRONAGE. 



in his case, for my immaculate person had not worn 

 this coat three months before it was paid for." 



" Ah, I forgot," said Fred., " who I Avas speaking 

 to ; but, do you know, you treat the man of threads and 

 patches shamefully, while I am making the fortune 

 of him who has the honour of supplying my wardrobe, 

 now the fact, I will answer for it, is this : you get your 

 three or four coats a year, by which he gets his ten 

 pounds profit ; so far, so good; this probably supplies 

 the fellow with cigars, and is better than the custom 

 of some of my friends, who never pay at all ; but mark 

 how I patronize ; my yearly bill is about three hundred. 

 This, upon my honour, I mean to pay him some time or 

 other if I can ; in the meantime, he has the credit of 

 being furnisher to a man who, without vanity, I may 

 say is considered as having some pretensions to taste ; 

 this, I also flatter myself, very considerably increases 

 the number of his customers, and fully warrants him 

 in increasing the amount of his charges to them." 



" How infinitely obliged your friends ought to be 

 to you," said Hartland. 



" Most indescribably so, my dear fellow," replied 

 Fred, ; " for as my patronage introduces customers to 

 my tailor, so being served by him helps to introduce 

 some of them to the fashionable world ; but I do more 

 for my man of cloth than this (for I am most pecu- 

 liarly tenacious of every thing that regards honourably 

 returning obligations) : I never permit a certain class 

 of my friends to ajDj^roach me without convincing 

 them that they have ordered at least two out of three 

 of every article they may happen to have on in bad 

 taste, giving them gratuitously hints as to what should 

 supply their place, so as this on an average causes an 

 additional fifteen or twenty articles to each friend, 



