ake of a new sweetheart,
stripped him of all he had one night while he slept, and left him so
much in debt that he was obliged to fly into the country--the relation,
I say, of these adventures made such an impression on young Neal that he
was never at rest until he fell into a method of copying them. And as
ill-design seldom waits long for an opportunity, so the death of his
first master, and his being turned over to a second, much less careful
and diligent to his business, furnished Neal with the occasion he
wanted. This master he both cheated of his money and defrauded of his
goods, letting in loose and disorderly persons in the night, and finding
a way for their going out again in the morning before his master was
awake, and consequently without the least suspicion.

These practices quickly broke the man with whom he lived, and his
breaking turned Edmund upon the wide world, equally destitute of money,
friends and capacity, not knowing what to do, and having but two
shillings in his pocket. He took a solitary walk to that end of the town
which went out upon the London Road, and there by chance he met a woman
who asked him to go with her to London. He not knowing what to do with
himself accepted her offer, and without any more words to the bargain
they set out together. The woman was very kind to him on the road, and
poor Edmund flattered himself that money was so plentiful in London as
to render it impossible for him to remain without it. But he was
miserably mistaken when he arrived there. He went to certain
public-houses of persons whom he had known in the country, who instead
of using him civilly, in a day or two's time were thrusting him out of
doors. Some common whores, also, finding him to be a poor country
fellow, easily seduced him and kept him amongst them for a stallion,
until, between their lust and their diseases, they had put him in a fair
road to the grave.

Tired out with their vices, which were even too gross for a mind so
corrupted as his was, he chose rather to go and live with a brewer and
carry out drink. But after living for some time with two masters of that
occupation, his mind still roving after an easier and pleasanter life,
he endeavoured to get it at some public-house; which at last he with
much ado effected at Sadlers Wells.[21] This appeared so great a
happiness that he thought he should never be tired of a life where there
was so much music and dancing, to which he had been always addic