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 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.
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 compel 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 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—"