Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/151

 Rh accomplish more in a given time than any two others, and his work was always well finished. I knew nothing of his former habits of life, and he commended himself so much to me by his cleverness, that I made him the chief manager, and I used to send him to Exeter to make the purchases, and he was as skilful in making bargains as in working. I frequently trusted him with as much as £20 or £25 at once, for this purpose, and he was uniformly honest and correct in all his dealings with me. He told one of his fellow workmen that he often had been strongly tempted to run away with the money, and then he would say to himself, "What! steal from a man who has been so invariably kind to me! and who places such perfect confidence in me! No; I cannot do it."

When he left me, I have understood that he returned to London, met with his old associates and fell into bad habits again.

At the end of three months I knew much more than the workmen did. I invented new patterns for the stuffs, which I showed them how to execute. The employment proved profitable, and I had insensibly put more and more capital into it, until at the end of a year I had £80 embarked in the manufactory, in place of the original £20 which was the estimate of the men. They quarrelled amongst themselves about the division of their share of the profits, and finally came to me to propose that I should pay them fixed wages, and carry on the business altogether on my own account.

Every thing now seemed to prosper with me. I hired the handsomest shop in Taunton, opposite the cross in the Market Place. I was able to furnish it with so great a variety that it was always full of customers. My wife was kept very busy, though she had two boys, Travernier and Garaché, to