it would have been hard, as I told him, to deny him
anything, or to refuse to go with him anywhere. So we settled everything
as well as we could, left Amy in charge with the house, and for his
other business, which was in jewels, he had two men he intrusted, who he
had good security for, and who managed for him, and corresponded with
him.

Things being thus concerted, we went away to France, arrived safe at
Calais, and by easy journeys came in eight days more to Paris, where we
lodged in the house of an English merchant of his acquaintance, and was
very courteously entertained.

My gentleman's business was with some persons of the first rank, and to
whom he had sold some jewels of very good value, and received a great
sum of money in specie; and, as he told me privately, he gained three
thousand pistoles by his bargain, but would not suffer the most intimate
friend he had there to know what he had received; for it is not so safe
a thing in Paris to have a great sum of money in keeping as it might be
in London.

We made this journey much longer than we intended, and my gentleman sent
for one of his managers in London to come over to us in Paris with some
diamonds, and sent him back to London again to fetch more. Then other
business fell into his hands so unexpectedly that I began to think we
should take up our constant residence there, which I was not very averse
to, it being my native country, and I spoke the language perfectly well.
So we took a good house in Paris, and lived very well there; and I sent
for Amy to come over to me, for I lived gallantly, and my gentleman was
two or three times going to keep me a coach, but I declined it,
especially at Paris, but as they have those conveniences by the day
there, at a certain rate, I had an equipage provided for me whenever I
pleased, and I lived here in a very good figure, and might have lived
higher if I pleased.

But in the middle of all this felicity a dreadful disaster befell me,
which entirely unhinged all my affairs, and threw me back into the same
state of life that I was in before; with this one happy exception,
however, that whereas before I was poor, even to misery, now I was not
only provided for, but very rich.

My gentleman had the name in Paris for a rich man, and indeed he was so,
though not so immensely rich as people imagined; but that which was
fatal to him was, that he generally carried a shagreen case in his
pocket, especially when he went to co