Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/424

384 384 THOMAS TEGG. sessed and reliant, and entering the shop of John and Arthur Arch, at the corner of Gracechurch Street, the kindly Quakers took him at once into their employ, and here he stayed until entering into business on his own account. His new masters were strict but affec- tionate. He soon asks for a holiday, " We have no objection, but where art thou going, Thomas ? ; ' " To Greenwich fair, sir." "Then we think thou hadst better not go. Thou wilt lose half a. day's wages. Thou wilt spend at least the amount of two days' wages more, and thou wilt get into bad company." At two, however, he was told he might go ; but as soon as he reached London Bridge his heart smote him, and he returned. " Why, Thomas, is this thee ? Thou art a prudent lad." And when Saturday came, his masters added a guinea to his weekly wages as a present. From this, Tegg says, he himself learnt to be a kind though strict master, and during his fifty years of business life, he never used a harsh word to a servant, and dismissed but three. Having received 200 from the wreck of the family prospects, Tegg took a shop, in partnership with a Mr. Dewick, in Aldersgate Street, and became a " bookmaker " as well as a bookseller ; and his first book, the " Complete Confectioner," though it con- tained only one hundred lines of original matter, reached a second edition. After a short time he indulged in a tour to Scotland, where he found that his old schoolmaster had died from the effects of an amputation ; and in this same journey he honestly bought up the unlapsed time of his apprenticeship. On returning to London he re-entered the service of the Messrs. Arch, and took unto himself a wife. The story of his courtship is pleasantly and naively told.