Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/363

 should be as good as their bonds. By this means there was not one of the company whose purse was not entirely at my command; and, had their money lasted, I should not have been found out a great while; but when I had drained them all as much as I could, their seeing me spend what I had got from them in my own extravagance, whilst I would not return them one farthing, even though they really wanted it, opened their eyes, and they discovered whence arose all my boasted morality. They had taken no security of me, and had no way to redress themselves; but one of them happened accidentally to be acquainted with a tradesman (in whose debt I was to the value of £50) to whom he told the story; and, just as all I had tricked the others of was spent, he arrested me. "'Now I knew not what to do. I thought the person I mentioned to you, who used sometimes to supply me with money in my last necessities, would grow weary of doing it; and yet I had no other refuge but to send to him. He said he would pay the money if I would promise to go into the country, and live upon a small income he paid me quarterly; otherwise he would let me go to gaol, and never take any further notice of me. Hard as these terms appeared, I was obliged to consent to them; on which the gentleman freed me from my confinement, gave me money enough to go into the country, and paid me as usual to maintain me there. "'Now, again, if I had not been utterly abandoned to all the sentiments of humanity, or the true knowledge of my own interest, I had an opportunity of recovering my lost constitution, which I had racked out in such a manner, that though in reality I was but a young man, I had all the infirmities and diseases incident to old age. But instead of reflecting how much I had all my lifetime been a dupe to