decent sum of money, provided, unlike him, I kept myself sober, and laid
by all the shillings and sixpences I got; but the prospect of laying up a
decent sum of money was not of sufficient importance to induce me to
continue either at my wooden desk, or in the inn-yard. The reader will
remember what difficulty I had to make up my mind to become a merchant
under the Armenian's auspices, even with the prospect of making two or
three hundred thousand pounds by following the Armenian way of doing
business, so it was not probable that I should feel disposed to be a book-
keeper or ostler all my life with no other prospect than being able to
make a tidy sum of money. If indeed, besides the prospect of making a
tidy sum at the end of perhaps forty years' ostlering, I had been certain
of being presented with a silver currycomb with my name engraved upon it,
which I might have left to my descendants, or, in default thereof, to the
parish church destined to contain my bones, with directions that it might
be soldered into the wall above the arch leading from the body of the
church into the chancel--I will not say with such a certainty of
immortality, combined with such a prospect of moderate pecuniary
advantage,--I might not have thought it worth my while to stay, but I
entertained no such certainty, and, taking everything into consideration,
I determined to mount my horse and leave the inn.

This horse had caused me for some time past no little perplexity; I had
frequently repented of having purchased him, more especially as the
purchase had been made with another person's money, and had more than
once shown him to people who, I imagined, were likely to purchase him;
but, though they were profuse in his praise, as people generally are in
the praise of what they don't intend to purchase, they never made me an
offer, and now that I had determined to mount on his back and ride away,
what was I to do with him in the sequel? I could not maintain him long.
Suddenly I bethought me of Horncastle, which Francis Ardry had mentioned
as a place where the horse was likely to find a purchaser, and not having
determined upon any particular place to which to repair, I thought that I
could do no better than betake myself to Horncastle in the first
instance, and there endeavour to dispose of my horse.

On making inquiries with respect to the situation of Horncastle, and the
time when the fair would be held, I learned that the town was situated