He patrolled the favourite “pitches” of the lace business—namely, the Borough-market, Walworth-road, Tooley-street, and Dockhead, Bermondsey.
He told his customers that he was a lace-maker from Millyham, and that the edgings were his own and his old father’s work.
This tale, which he related with eloquence and sometimes with tears, worked largely on the feelings of his auditory, and whilst compassionate sailor-girls gazed tenderly on his handsome and grief-stricken features, his sobs extracted sympathy from their hearts.
The next day he went to the houses in and about Regent’s Park, and towards Maida-hill. There he sold his pseudo Mechlin to the old dowagers, and his worked collars or “edgings” to their housemaids.
He felt a pleasure in cheating these dames, who, while trying to cheat Government, were trying to cheat the whole of their fellow-countrymen; but he felt a pang in clipping the measures of those pretty servant-girls, who gave him such bright smiles and words, and to whom pennies were so precious because they were so hardly earned.
However, he consoled his conscience with the Machiavellian maxim, “All’s fair in Trade.”
It had become his motto, as it is the motto of those Jesuits of commerce, who say that all is fair which is foul, false, and thievish.
It was his panacea for the heart’s qualms, as it is the panacea, for heaven knows how many thousands in London who rise and fast behind their counters till they have stolen the price of their breakfasts.
He told his mistress how he had succeeded by chicanery in realising a good sum for her.
She complimented him.