again, and rejected the overtures of Mrs. Squeeze, the broker's widow,
who had ten thousand pounds at her own disposal.

I bred my son at a school near Islington; and when he had learned
arithmetick, and wrote a good hand, I took him into the shop, designing,
in about ten years, to retire to Stratford or Hackney, and leave him
established in the business.

For four years he was diligent and sedate, entered the shop before it
was opened, and when it was shut, always examined the pins of the
window. In any intermission of business it was his constant practice to
peruse the leger. I had always great hopes of him, when I observed how
sorrowfully he would shake his head over a bad debt, and how eagerly he
would listen to me when I told him that he might at one time or other
become an alderman.

We lived together with mutual confidence, till, unluckily, a visit was
paid him by two of his school-fellows, who were placed, I suppose, in
the army, because they were fit for nothing better: they came glittering
in their military dress, accosted their old acquaintance, and invited
him to a tavern, where, as I have been since informed, they ridiculed
the meanness of commerce, and wondered how a youth of spirit could spend
the prime of life behind a counter. I did not suspect any mischief. I
knew my son was never without money in his pocket, and was better able
to pay his reckoning than his companions; and expected to see him return
triumphing in his own advantages, and congratulating himself that he was
not one of those who expose their heads to a musket bullet for three
shillings a day.

He returned sullen and thoughtful; I supposed him sorry for the hard
fortune of his friends; and tried to comfort him, by saying that the war
would soon be at an end, and that, if they had any honest occupation,
half-pay would be a pretty help. He looked at me with indignation; and
snatching up his candle, told me, as he went up stairs, that _he hoped
to see a battle yet_.

Why he should hope to see a battle, I could not conceive, but let him go
quietly to sleep away his folly. Next day he made two mistakes in the
first bill, disobliged a customer by surly answers, and dated all his
entries in the journal in a wrong month. At night he met his military
companions again, came home late, and quarrelled with the maid.

From this fatal interview he has gradually lost all his laudable
passions and desires. He soon grew useless in the shop, where, in