The Monikins | Page 7

possession of returns from it that exceeded the
debt some seven-fold, he began to think the old man was alluding to the
advantages he obtained in the way of credit, and after a little more
cogitation, he ventured to say as much.
Again my maternal grandfather indulged in a hearty fit of laughter.
"Thou art clever in thy way, Tom," he said, "and I like the minuteness
of thy calculations, for they show an aptitude for trade; but there is
genius in our calling as well as cleverness. Come hither, boy," he added,
drawing Tom to a window whence they could see the neighbors on
their way to church, for it was on a Sunday that my two provident
progenitors indulged in this moral view of humanity, as best fitted the
day, "come hither, boy, and thou shalt see some small portion of that
capital which thou seemest to think hid, stalking abroad by daylight,
and in the open streets. Here, thou seest the wife of our neighbor, the
pastry-cook; with what an air she tosses her head and displays the
bauble thou sold'st her yesterday: well, even that slattern, idle and vain,
and little worthy of trust as she is, carries about with her a portion of
my capital!"
My worthy ancestor stared, for he never knew the other to be guilty of
so great an indiscretion as to trust a woman whom they both knew
bought more than her husband was willing to pay for.
"She gave me a guinea, master, for that which did not cost a seven-
shilling piece!"
"She did, indeed, Tom, and it was her vanity that urged her to it. I trade
upon her folly, younker, and upon that of all mankind; now dost thou
see with what a capital I carry on affairs? There--there is the maid,
carrying the idle hussy's patterns in the rear; I drew upon my stock in
that wench's possession, no later than the last week, for half-a-crown!"
Tom reflected a long time on these allusions of his provident master,
and although he understood them about as well as they will be

understood by the owners of half the soft humid eyes and sprouting
whiskers among my readers, by dint of cogitation he came at last to a
practical understanding of the subject, which before he was thirty he
had, to use a French term, pretty well exploite.
I learn by unquestionable tradition, received also from the mouths of
his contemporaries, that the opinions of my ancestor underwent some
material changes between the ages of ten and forty, a circumstance that
has often led me to reflect that people might do well not to be too
confident of the principles, during the pliable period of life, when the
mind, like the tender shoot, is easily bent aside and subjected to the
action of surrounding causes.
During the earlier years of the plastic age, my ancestor was observed to
betray strong feelings of compassion at the sight of charity-children,
nor was he ever known to pass a child, especially a boy that was still in
petticoats, who was crying with hunger in the streets, without sharing
his own crust with him. Indeed, his practice on this head was said to be
steady and uniform, whenever the rencontre took place after my worthy
father had had his own sympathies quickened by a good dinner; a fact
that maybe imputed to a keener sense of the pleasure he was about to
confer.
After sixteen, he was known to converse occasionally on the subject of
politics, a topic on which he came to be both expert and eloquent
before twenty. His usual theme was justice and the sacred rights of man,
concerning which he sometimes uttered very pretty sentiments, and
such as were altogether becoming in one who was at the bottom of the
great social pot that was then, as now, actively boiling, and where he
was made to feel most, the heat that kept it in ebullition. I am assured
that on the subject of taxation, and on that of the wrongs of America
and Ireland, there were few youths in the parish who could discourse
with more zeal and unction. About this time, too, he was heard
shouting "Wilkes and liberty!" in the public streets.
But, as is the case with all men of rare capacities, there was a
concentration of powers in the mind of my ancestor, which soon
brought all his errant sympathies, the mere exuberance of acute and

overflowing feelings, into a proper and useful subjection, centring all in
the one absorbing and capacious receptacle of self. I do not claim for
my father any peculiar quality in this respect, for I have often observed
that many of those who (like giddy-headed horsemen that raise a great
dust,