s and mortgages; gradually
squeezed his customers closer and closer: and sent them at length, dry
as a sponge, from his door.

In this way he made money hand over hand; became a rich and mighty
man, and exalted his cocked hat upon 'Change. He built himself, as
usual, a vast house, out of ostentation; but left the greater part of
it unfinished and unfurnished, out of parsimony. He even set up a
carriage in the fulness of his vainglory, though he nearly starved the
horses which drew it; and as the ungreased wheels groaned and
screeched on the axle-trees, you would have thought you heard the
souls of the poor debtors he was squeezing.

As Tom waxed old, however, he grew thoughtful. Having secured the good
things of this world, he began to feel anxious about those of the
next. He thought with regret on the bargain he had made with his black
friend, and set his wits to work to cheat him out of the conditions.
He became, therefore, all of a sudden, a violent church-goer. He
prayed loudly and strenuously, as if heaven were to be taken by force
of lungs. Indeed, one might always tell when he had sinned most during
the week, by the clamour of his Sunday devotion. The quiet Christians
who had been modestly and steadfastly travelling Zionward, were struck
with self-reproach at seeing themselves so suddenly outstripped in
their career by this new-made convert. Tom was as rigid in religious
as in money matters; he was a stern supervisor and censurer of his
neighbours, and seemed to think every sin entered up to their account
became a credit on his own side of the page. He even talked of the
expediency of reviving the persecution of Quakers and Anabaptists. In
a word, Tom's zeal became as notorious as his riches.

Still, in spite of all this strenuous attention to forms, Tom had a
lurking dread that the devil, after all, would have his due. That he
might not be taken unawares, therefore, it is said he always carried a
small Bible in his coat-pocket. He had also a great folio Bible on his
counting-house desk, and would frequently be found reading it when
people called on business; on such occasions he would lay his green
spectacles in the book, to mark the place, while he turned round to
drive some usurious bargain.

Some say that Tom grew a little crack-brained in his old days, and
that, fancying his end approaching, he had his horse new shod, saddled
and bridled, and buried with his feet uppermost; because he supposed
that at t