m for the damage he had sustained on their account. He
accordingly went to his lordship and signified his demand, after having
told him, that he had suffered several fresh losses, which rendered
an immediate provision of that sort necessary to his credit and
subsistence. His noble friend commended him for the regard he manifested
for his own interest, which he considered as a proof of his being at
last detached from the careless inadvertency of youth; he approved of
his demand, which he assured him should be faithfully transmitted to the
minister, and backed with all his influence; and encouraged his hope, by
observing, that some profitable places were at that time vacant, and, so
far as he knew, unengaged.

This conversation helped to restore the tranquility of Pickle's breast,
though he still harboured resentment against Cadwallader, on account of
the last insult; and on the instant he formed a plan of revenge. He knew
the misanthrope's remittances from his estate in the country had been of
late very scanty, in consequence of repairs and bankruptcies among his
tenants; so that, in spite of all his frugality, he had been but barely
able to maintain his credit, and even that was engaged on the strength
of his running rent. Being therefore intimately acquainted with the
particulars of his fortune, he wrote a letter to Crabtree, subscribed
with the name of his principal farmer's wife, importing that her husband
being lately dead, and the greatest part of her cattle destroyed by the
infectious distemper, she found herself utterly incapable of paying the
rent which was due, or even of keeping the farm, unless he would, out
of his great goodness, be pleased to give her some assistance, and allow
her to sit free for a twelvemonth to come. This intimation he found
means to convey by post from a market town adjoining to the farm,
directed in the usual style to the cynic, who, seeing it stamped with
the known marks, could not possibly suspect any imposition.

Hackneyed as he was in the ways of life, and steeled with his boasted
stoicism, this epistle threw him into such an agony of vexation, that
a double proportion of souring was visible in his aspect, when he was
visited by the author, who, having observed and followed the postman
at a proper distance, introduced a conversation upon his own
disappointments, in which, among other circumstances of his own
ill-luck, he told him, that his patron's steward had desired to be
excuse