Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/514

472 472 PROVINCIAL BOOKSELLERS. laborious as it was, and in 1750 he made an exploring journey to Birmingham, where he found there were only three booksellers Warren, Aris, and Wollaston, and here he resolved to settle, hoping that he might escape the envy of " the three great men." He obtained the use of half a little shop for the moderate premium of one shilling per week, but he had as yet to find wherewith to stock it. On a visit to Nottingham, he met a friendly- minister, who asked, for the weather was inclement, why he had ventured so far without a great-coat, and who on receiving no reply, shrewdly guessed Hutton's im- poverished condition, from his draggled, thread-bare garments, and offered him a couple of hundred-weight of books at his own price, and that price to be post- poned to the future, and by way of receipt the young bookseller gave him the following : " I promise to pay to Ambrose Rudsall 1 *]$., when I am able." The debt was speedily cancelled. His period of probation was sufficiently severe : " Five shillings a week covered all my expenses, as food, washing, lodging, &c.," but by degrees the better- informed and wealthier of the young clerks and apprentices began to frequent his shop, and were attracted by his zeal, and his evident love for the books he sold. With his skill in binding, he could furbish up the shabbiest tomes, and greatly increase their marketable value. By the end of his first year he found that he had, by the most rigid economy, saved up twenty pounds. Things were brightening, but the overseers, who at that time possessed a terrible power over the poorest classes, ostensibly dreading lest he should become chargeable to the parish, re- fused his payment of the rates, and bade him remove