Page:History of Charles Jones, the footman (1).pdf/7

 game again as long as I lived, which resolution, by God's grace, I have hitherto happily kept. I wish from my heart that all other servants would resolve the same. The practice of card-playing, so common among servants in large families, is the worst custom they can possibly fall into. My poor brother Tom suffered enough for it. One day having received in the morning a quarter's wages, he lost the whole of it before night at All Fours; and what was the consequence? Why, from that very time, hohe [sic] took to those practices of cheating his master which ended in his ruin.

How much better would it bobe [sic] for all servants, if instead of wasting their leisure in card-playing, they would amuse themselves in reading some Godly book, or improve themselves in writing, or cyphering. It was by this means, for I was never taught to write, that I qualified myself for thothe [sic] place of Bailiff, which I now fill.

I remember Nic used to say, 'Whilst my master plays cards in the parlour, why shouldst thou be so squeamish as not to play in the kitchen?' But Nic did not consider that his master being rich, and playing for small sums, his losses laid him under no temptation of dishonesty, in order to repay them; besides the Squire could read and write at any time, whereas this was our only leisure time, and if we did not improve ourselves then, we never could; what might be comparatively innocent in him, might be ruinous to us. And even if my master be a professed gambler, that is no reason I should be so too. A servant is to do what is right, let his master do what he will. If a master swears and gets drunk, and talks at table with indecency, or against God and religion, to God he must account for it, and a sorry account it will be, I doubt;