72.  Nothing is much more discreditable than what is called hard dealing.  They say of the Turks, that they know nothing of two prices for the same article; and that to ask an abatement of the lowest shopkeeper is to insult him.  It would be well if Christians imitated Mahometans in this respect.  To ask one price and take another, or to offer one price and give another, besides the loss of time that it occasions, is highly dishonourable to the parties, and especially when pushed to the extent of solemn protestations.  It is, in fact, a species of lying; and it answers no one advantageous purpose to either buyer or seller.  I hope that every young man who reads this, will start in life with a resolution never to higgle and lie in dealings.  There is this circumstance in favour of the bookseller’s business:  every book has its fixed price, and no one ever asks an abatement.  If it were thus in all other trades, how much time would be saved, and how much immorality prevented!

73.  As to the spending of your time, your business or your profession is to claim the priority of everything else.  Unless that be duly attended to, there can be no real pleasure in any other employment of a portion of your time.  Men, however, must have some leisure, some relaxation from business; and in the choice of this relaxation much of your happiness will depend.  Where fields and gardens are at hand, they present the most rational scenes for leisure.  As to company, I have said enough in the former letter to deter any young man from that of drunkards and rioting companions; but there is such a thing as your quiet ‘pipe-and-pot-companions,’ which are, perhaps, the most fatal of all.  Nothing can be conceived more dull, more stupid, more the contrary of edification and rational amusement, than sitting, sotting, over a pot and a glass, sending out smoke from the head, and articulating, at intervals, nonsense about all sorts of things.  Seven years service as a galley-slave would be more bearable to a man of sense, than seven months confinement to society like this.  Yet, such is the effect of habit, that, if a young man become a frequenter of such scenes, the idle propensity sticks to him for life.  Some companions, however, every man must have; but these every well-behaved man will find in private houses, where families are found residing and where the suitable intercourse takes place between women and men.  A man that cannot pass an evening without drink merits the name of a sot.  Why should there be drink for the purpose of carrying on conversation?  Women stand in need of no drink to stimulate them to converse; and I have a thousand times admired their patience in sitting quietly at their work, while their husbands are engaged, in the same room, with bottles and glasses before them, thinking nothing of the expense and still less of the shame which the distinction reflects upon them.  We have to thank the women for many things,