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time. Into how many scrapes has this talkative temper brought many servants of my acquaintance! There was poor Nic Jarret, the squire’s under footman, that lost his place, a new suit of black broad cloth, and a legacy of five pounds, which he would soon have had by reason of his mistress’s death, only for saying at a neighbour’s house, that his mistress sometimes fell asleep while the squire was reading to the family on a Sunday night.
Nic and I were at one time rather too intimate; I remember one day, when I was about sixteen, having attended my master to the squire’s house, Nic prevailed on me after dinner to play with him at pitch and toss. I was worth at that time five shillings and two pence, more money than I had ever possessed before in my life. In about two hours Nic reduced me to my last shilling But though it was a heavy stroke at the time, yet it proved in the end a happy event, for by my mother’s persuasions, I resolved thence forward never to 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, he took to those practices of cheating his master which ended in
