“After repaying all my expenses for my journey
and machinery, I found I had six guineas and a crown
to spare. So I thought myself a rich man; and,
having never seen so much money together in my life
before, as six golden guineas and a crown, I should,
most probably, like the generality of people who come
into the possession of unexpected wealth, have become
extravagant, had it not been for the timely advice
of my kind monitor, Mr. Y——. When
I showed him a pair of Chinese tumblers, which I had
bought from a pedlar for twice as much as they were
worth, merely because they pleased my fancy, he shook
his head, and observed that I might, before my death,
want this very money to buy a loaf of bread. ’If
you spend your money as fast as you get it, Jervas,’
said he, ’no matter how ingenious or industrious
you are, you will always be poor. Remember the
good proverb that says, Industry is Fortune’s
right hand, and Frugality her left;’ a proverb
which has been worth ten times more to me than all
my little purse contained: so true it is, that
those do not always give most who give money.”
CHAPTER III.
“I had soon reason to rejoice at having thrown
away no more money on baubles, as I had occasion for
my whole stock to fit myself out for a new way of
life. ‘Jervas,’ said Mr. Y——
to me, ’I have at last found an occupation,
which I hope will suit you.’—Unknown
to me, he had been, ever since he first saw my little
model, intent upon turning it to my lasting advantage.
Among the gentlemen of the society which I have before
mentioned, there was one who had formed a design of
sending some well-informed lecturer through England,
to exhibit models of the machines used in manufactories:
Mr. Y—— purposely invited this gentleman
the evening that I exhibited my tin-mine, and proposed
to him that I should be permitted to accompany his
lecturer. To this he agreed. Mr. Y——
told me that although the person who was fixed upon
as lecturer was not exactly the sort of man he should
have chosen, yet as he was a relation of the gentleman
who set the business on foot, no objection could well
be made to him.
“I was rather daunted by the cold and haughty
look with which my new master, the lecturer, received
me when I was presented to him. Mr. Y——,
observing this, whispered to me at parting. ’Make
yourself useful, and you will soon be agreeable to
him. We must not expect to find friends ready
made wherever we go in the world: we often have
to make friends for ourselves with great pains and
care.’ It cost me both pains and care,
I know, to make this lecturer my friend. He was
what is called born a gentleman; and he began
by treating me as a low-born upstart, who, being perfectly
ignorant, wanted to pass for a self-taught genius.
That I was low-born, I did not attempt to conceal;
nor did I perceive that I had any reason to be ashamed
of my birth, or of having raised myself by honest
Copyrights
Tales and Novels — Volume 02 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
