XIII.

When you are about to execute some great plan, and to defraud a number
of persons, let the first one or two of the allotted number be the
cleverest, shrewdest fellows you can find. You have then a reference
that will alone dupe the rest of the world. "That Mr. Lynx is
satisfied," will amply suffice to satisfy Mr. Mole of the honesty of
your intentions! Nor are shrewd men the hardest to take in; they rely on
their strength: invulnerable heroes are necessarily the bravest. Talk to
them in a business-like manner, and refer your design at once to their
lawyer. My friend John Shamberry was a model in this grand stroke of
art. He swindled twelve people to the tune of some thousands, with no
other trouble than it first cost him to swindle--whom do you think?--the
Secretary to the Society for the Suppression of Swindling!

XIV.

Divide your arts into two classes,--those which cost you little labour,
those which cost much. The first,--flattery, attention, answering
letters by return of post, walking across a street to oblige the man you
intend to ruin; all these you must never neglect. The least man is worth
gaining at a small cost. And besides, while you are serving yourself,
you are also obtaining the character of civility, diligence,
and good-nature. But the arts which cost you much labour--a long
subservience to one testy individual; aping the semblance of a virtue,
a quality, or a branch of learning which you do not possess, to a person
difficult to blind,--all these never begin except for great ends, worth
not only the loss of time, but the chance of detection. Great pains
for small gains is the maxim of the miser. The rogue should have more
grandeur d'ame!--[Greatness of soul].

XV.

Always forgive.

XVI.

If a man owe you a sum of money--pupils though you be of mine, you may
once in your lives be so silly as to lend--and you find it difficult
to get it back, appeal, not to his justice, but to his charity. The
components of justice flatter few men! Who likes to submit to an
inconvenience because he ought to do it,--without praise, without
even self--gratulation? But charity, my dear friends, tickles up human
ostentation deliciously. Charity implies superiority; and the feeling of
superiority is most grateful to social nature. Hence the commonness of
charity, in proportion to other virtues, all over the