It was at such a season that I entered the
shaver's body. The knocks at my door were
frequent, and the demands of my visiters to be
brought into presence irresistible. What cared
they for my pains and sickness?—they wanted
money: what cared I for my pains and sickness?—
I was anxious to make it. I ordered my house-keeper
Barbara (for it seems I was such a niggard
I had no other servant) to admit all well-dressed
applicants; for I scorned to deal with any other.

The first person admitted was a woman, very
good looking, but advanced in years. She kept a
boarding-house, but, as Barbara informed me, had
seen better days, having been the wife of a rich

[figure description] Page 263.[end figure description]

merchant, who failed, was absurd enough to keep
his books so straight as to allow no opportunity
for defrauding his creditors, surrendered up every
cent of his property, and died a beggar, leaving a
widow and six orphan daughters to lament his
honesty.

She was in some little flurry and perturbation of
spirits, but I spoke with a blandness that astonished
myself, until I found that this was always my
practice with a customer whom I was not tired of.
This restored her to confidence and garrulity.

Her tale was soon told:—her boarders were all
very fine gentlemen and ladies, and good pay; but
the times were so hard, they were just at this moment
compelled to pay with promises; with which
coin her landlord was not so easily satisfied. She
would not distress poor Mr. G., who owed her a
hundred and fifty dollars, nor Mr. H., nor Mrs. I.,
who were all in a peck of trouble just then, but
were well enough to do in the world—no, not she;
she had heard I was so good as often to lend to
people who wanted money for a few days, even
when the banks would not, provided they were
good and safe; and who was better and safer than
she? With all her troubles, and the Lord he
knew they were many and enough, she had always
paid her debts, and she defied anybody to
say the contrary: and so she hoped I would be so
good as to oblige her with the small sum of two
hundred-dollars, which, upon her honest word, she
would pay as soon as she had the money.

[figure description] Page 264.[end figure description]

To this eloquent suggestion I answered (and I
doubt if the true Abram Skinner could have answered
better) by lamenting her difficulties, and
assuring her I was in as great trouble as herself,
not having a cent at command that I could call
my own (the iron chest told another story, and there
were divers handsome hundreds placed to my credit
in three or four different banks); nevertheless I had
a little money belonging to a friend, which I
thought I might make so free as to lend to one of
her excellent character and standing; but that
would be taking a great responsibility on my shoulders,
&c. &c., in terms which the reader can easily
imagine; and I concluded by hinting, that if she
had any plate or other valuables to deposite as a
security, it would save her the trouble of giving her
note, and the inconvenience such an instrument
might prove to her, if my friend's necessities should
comple him to throw it into the market.

The widow, delighted with my frankness, and
penetrated by my friendliness, ran home, and returned
with a basket of chattels to the value of perhaps
three hundred and fifty dollars.

“Very good,” said I; “you shall have the money,
though I should have to pay for it myself.”

“Sure,” said she, “but you are a good obliging
man, and I shall be much beholden: and sure, but
I thought all pawnbrokers had golden balls at their
doors.”

“Madam,” said I, “thank your good fortune that
I am not a pawnbroker. Had you gone to such a

[figure description] Page 265.[end figure description]

person you would have paid dear for your money,
and perhaps lost your silver into the bargain.
Now, supposing this silver to be worth three hundred
dollars—”

“Three hundred lack-a-daisies!” said the old
lady, “why, it cost more than four hundred dollars;
for I remember the coffee-pot—”

“Yes, ma'am,” said I; “that was the cost of
making: I reckon the silver at about three hundred
dollars, though that is a large allowance. Now,
had you taken this to a pawnbroker, what do you
think he would have loaned you on it?”

“To be sure, and I suppose; but I can't say.”

“One hundred dollars, perhaps, if a moderate
fellow,” said I; “but I am another sort of man;
I scorn to take any advantage of any one. Yes,”
said I, feeling warm and virtuous, “I scorn them
there fellows that take advantage, and grind down
the poor to the last mite. I, Mrs.—, hum, ha,
Mrs.—”

“Mrs. Smith,” said the old lady, eying me with
admiration.

“I, Mrs. Smith, will treat you in another way;
I will let you have what you want—the full two
hundred dollars, for the space of thirty days, and
charge you but twenty-five dollars for the favour.”

“Sure,” said Mrs. Smith, “and that's dear.”

“On the contrary, madam,” said I, “it is but
twelve and a half per cent. a month, whereas money
will often fetch fifteen.”

“Will it, indeed?” said the foolish widow; “and

[figure description] Page 266.[end figure description]

sure but you must know better than myself. Well,
then, Mr. Skinner, let me have the two hundred
dollars, and you shall have the plate in pawn.”

“No, ma'am,” said I, “none but a pawnbroker
can do that. A gentleman like myself does this
sort of thing in another manner; for were I to receive
this silver as a pawn, you might prosecute
me for it in court, and make me pay a fine. The
way we do is this; I buy the plate of you, for two
hundred dollars, taking a receipt from you for that
amount, and granting you, on my part, a written
permission to purchase the same back again, this
day month, for the sum of two hundred and twenty-five
dollars.”

“La!” said the old lady, “is that the way? But
what if I should not get the money in a month?”

“Why, then,” said I, with a look of benevolence,
“why, then, I think I must give you a month
longer.”

“Sure and you are the best man in the world,”
said Mrs. Smith; “and you think my silver won't
be in no danger? and you'll lock it up in some big
iron chest? for thieves are quite thick already;
and your paper to buy again will be just as good as
a pawnbroker's certificate?”

I hastened to satisfy the old lady's mind on this
and all other subjects. I then wrote out a receipt,
which I caused her to subscribe, being a due acknowledgment
on her part of having sold me certain
specified articles of plate; after which I delivered
her a paper, in which, without troubling

[figure description] Page 267.[end figure description]

myself to make any reference to the conveyance, I
covenanted to sell her the same articles, at the price
mentioned before, at the expiration of thirty days.

With this and the two hundred dollars which I
now gave her, the foolish woman departed very well
satisfied; and as for me, I actually rubbed my
hands together with the delight of having made
such a good bargain. I say again, old Skinner
himself could not have managed the affair with
greater address than myself; and, young as I was
in his body, I felt as much satisfaction at having
overreached a silly old woman, as ever a less avaricious
man felt at deluding a young one. This
was small game, to be sure, for a man who dabbled
in stocks, and counted profits, not by dollars,
but by hundreds and thousands; but, as I said before,
Abram Skinner was a man of all work, who
thought no gain small enough to be despised, and
who cheated a single tatterdemalion with as much
zeal as he would fleece a community.

The end of the bargain was this: in a month's
time Mrs. Smith called on me again, but without
money; whereupon I spoke to her with greater benevolence
than before, assured her she need not be
distressed, and renewed the engagement between
us by adding twenty-five dollars (the interest upon
the money advanced) to the sums specified in the
conveyance and covenant; and the same amount I
added at the expiration of the second month. And
this course I intended to pursue for two months
more, until the amount of interest should swell the

[figure description] Page 268.[end figure description]

purchase-money to three hundred dollars; after
which I designed to close the bargain, and consider
the silver fairly purchased.

If anybody supposes I treated the old woman ill—
that I acted dishonestly, and even illegally, in the
matter—all I have to say is, that I only did what
Abram Skinner the shaver had done a thousand
times before me, and what, I have no doubt, other
worthy gentlemen of his tribe have done after me.
He who rides with the devil must put up with his
driving; and he who deals with his nephews must
look for something warmer than burnt fingers.

The transaction with Mrs. Smith was a sample
of divers others, begun and conducted on the same
principles, though involving more momentous profits.
The system of forfeitures, as practised by a
skilful hand, is applicable to all species of property,
and I practised it with great effect in the case
of houses and lands, and the Lord knows what besides.
The “pressure” continued long; and I think
I should have made a handsome fortune in the
course of the winter out of this single branch of
my business alone, had not destiny arrested me in
the midst of a prosperous career, and left the business
to be settled by my administrators.

p016-278

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