considered myself as really interested
as I was when I personated them on earth. I have just now caught myself
in the fact; for I have complained to you as bitterly of my customers
as I formerly used to do when I was the tailor: but in reality, though
there were some few persons of very great quality, and some others, who
never paid their debts, yet those were but a few, and I had a method of
repairing this loss. My customers I divided under three heads: those who
paid ready money, those who paid slow, and those who never paid at all.
The first of these I considered apart by themselves, as persons by whom
I got a certain but small profit. The two last I lumped together, making
those who paid slow contribute to repair my losses by those who did not
pay at all. Thus, upon the whole, I was a very inconsiderable loser, and
might have left a fortune to my family, had I not launched forth into
expenses which swallowed up all my gains. I had a wife and two children.
These indeed I kept frugally enough, for I half starved them; but I kept
a mistress in a finer way, for whom I had a country-house, pleasantly
situated on the Thames, elegantly fitted up and neatly furnished.
This woman might very properly be called my mistress, for she was most
absolutely so; and though her tenure was no higher than by my will,
she domineered as tyrannically as if my chains had been riveted in the
strongest manner. To all this I submitted, not through any adoration of
her beauty, which was indeed but indifferent. Her charms consisted in
little wantonnesses, which she knew admirably well to use in hours of
dalliance, and which, I believe, are of all things the most delightful
to a lover.

"She was so profusely extravagant, that it seemed as if she had an
actual intent to ruin me. This I am sure of, if such had been her real
intention, she could have taken no properer way to accomplish it; nay,
I myself might appear to have had the same view: for, besides this
extravagant mistress and my country-house, I kept likewise a brace of
hunters, rather for that it was fashionable so to do than for any great
delight I took in the sport, which I very little attended; not for want
of leisure, for few noblemen had so much. All the work I ever did was
taking measure, and that only of my greatest and best customers. I scare
ever cut a piece of cloth in my life, nor was indeed much more able to
fashion a coat than any gentleman in the kingdom. This made a skillful