t by which Badman piled up his fortune.
The seventeenth century was not so far behind us as we sometimes
persuade ourselves. 'He dealt by deceitful weights and measures. He
kept weights to buy by and weights to sell by, measures to buy by and
measures to sell by. Those he bought by were too big, and those he
sold by were too little. If he had to do with other men's weights and
measures, he could use a thing called sleight of hand. He had the art
besides to misreckon men in their accounts, whether by weight or
measure or money; and if a question was made of his faithful dealing,
he had his servants ready that would vouch and swear to his look or
word. He would sell goods that cost him not the best price by far, for
as much as he sold his best of all for. He had also a trick to mingle
his commodity, that that which was bad might go off with the least
mistrust. If any of his customers paid him money, he would call for
payment a second time, and if they could not produce good and
sufficient ground of the payment, a hundred to one but they paid it
again.'

'To buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest' was Mr.
Badman's common rule in business. According to modern political
economy, it is the cardinal principle of wholesome trade. In Bunyan's
opinion it was knavery in disguise, and certain to degrade and
demoralise everyone who acted upon it. Bunyan had evidently thought on
the subject. Mr. Attentive is made to object:--

'But you know that there is no settled price set by God upon any
commodity that is bought or sold under the sun; but all things that we
buy and sell do ebb and flow as to price like the tide. How then shall
a man of tender conscience do, neither to wrong the seller, buyer, nor
himself in the buying and selling of commodities?'

Mr. Wiseman answers in the spirit of our old Acts of Parliament,
before political economy was invented:--

'Let a man have conscience towards God, charity to his neighbours, and
moderation in dealing. Let the tradesman consider that there is not
that in great gettings and in abundance which the most of men do
suppose; for all that a man has over and above what serves for his
present necessity and supply, serves only to feed the lusts of the
eye. Be thou confident that God's eyes are upon thy ways; that He
marks them, writes them down, and seals them up in a bag against the
time to come. Be sure that thou rememberest that thou knowest not the
day of thy death. Thou shalt