“My love,” said she, “here is Mr. Nun below, waiting to see you; but he says he will not see you till I have told you the good news. He has got all our creditors to enter into a compromise, and to set you at liberty.”
I was transported with joy and gratitude; our benevolent friend was waiting in a hackney-coach to carry us away from prison. When I began to thank him, he stopped me with a blunt declaration that I was not a bit obliged to him; for that, if I had been a man of straw, he would have done just the same for the sake of my wife, whom he looked upon to be one or other the best woman he had ever seen, Mrs. Nun always excepted.
He proceeded to inform me how he had settled my affairs, and how he had obtained from my creditors a small allowance for the immediate support of myself and family. He had given up the third part of a considerable sum due to himself. As my own house was shut up, he insisted upon taking us home with him: “Mrs. Nun,” he said, “had provided a good dinner; and he must not have her ducks and green peas upon the table, and no friends to eat them.”
Never were ducks and green peas more acceptable; never was a dinner eaten with more appetite, or given with more good-will. I have often thought of this dinner, and compared the hospitality of this simple-hearted man with the ostentation of great folks, who give splendid entertainments to those who do not want them. In trifles and in matters of consequence this Mr. Nun was one of the most liberal and unaffectedly generous men I ever knew; but the generous actions of men in middle life are lost in obscurity. No matter: they do not act from a love of fame; they act from a better motive, and they have their reward in their own hearts.
As I was passing through Mr. Nun’s warehouse, I was thinking of writing something on this subject; but whether it should be a poetic effusion, in the form of “An Ode to him who least expects it,” or a prose work, under the title of “Modern Parallels,” in the manner of Plutarch, I had not decided, when I was roused from my reverie by my wife, who, pointing to a large bale of paper that was directed to “Ezekiel Croft, merchant, Philadelphia,” asked me if I knew that this gentleman was a very near relation of her mother? “Is he, indeed?” said Mr. Nun. “Then I can assure you that you have a relation of whom you have no occasion to be ashamed: he is one of the most respectable merchants in Philadelphia.”
“He was not very rich when he left this country about six years ago,” said Lucy.
“He has a very good fortune now,” answered Mr. Nun.
“And has he made this very good fortune in six years?” cried I. “My dear Lucy, I did not know that you had any relations in America. I have a great mind to go over there myself.”
“Away from all our friends!” said Lucy.
“I shall be ashamed,” replied I, “to see them after all that has happened. A bankrupt cannot have many friends. The best thing that I can possibly do is to go over to a new world, where I may establish a new character, and make a new fortune.”