Part 19 (1/2)

_A_.--It may be so, but I cannot oblige people to inform me.

_B_.--But you would entreat it as a favour, and so I come to you.

_A_.--But you may go to any body else.

_B_.--But you are a man of integrity; I can depend upon what you say; I know you will not deceive me; and, therefore, I beg of you to satisfy me.

_A_.--But I desire you to excuse me, for it is what I never do--I cannot do it.

_B_.--But, sir, I am in a great strait; I am just selling him a great parcel of goods, and I am willing to sell them too, and yet I am willing to be safe, as you would yourself, if you were in my case.

_A_.--I tell you, sir, I have always resolved to forbear meddling with the characters of my neighbours--it is an ill office. Besides, I mind my own business; I do not enter into the inquiries after other people's affairs.

_B_.--Well, sir, I understand you, then; I know what I have to do.

_A_.--What do you mean by that?

_B_.--Nothing, sir, but what I suppose you would have me understand by it.

_A_.--I would have you understand what I say--namely, that I will meddle with n.o.body's business but my own.

_B_.--And I say I understand you; I know you are a good man, and a man of charity, and loth to do your neighbours any prejudice, and that you will speak the best of every man as near as you can.

_A_.--I tell you, I speak neither the best nor the worst--I speak nothing.

_B_.--Well, sir, that is to say, that as charity directs you to speak well of every man, so, when you cannot speak well, you refrain, and will say nothing; and you do very well, to be sure; you are a very kind neighbour.

_A_.--But that is a base construction of my words; for I tell you, I do the like by every body.

_B_.--Yes, sir, I believe you do, and I think you are in the right of it--am fully satisfied.

_A_.--You act more unjustly by me than by my neighbour; for you take my silence, or declining to give a character, to be giving an ill character.

_B_.--No, sir, not for an ill character.

_A_.--But I find you take it for a ground of suspicion.

_B_.--I take it, indeed, for a due caution to me, sir; but the man may be a good man for all that, only--

_A_.--Only what? I understand you--only you won't trust him with your goods.

_B_.--But another man may, sir, for all that, so that you have been kind to your neighbours and to me too, sir--and you are very just. I wish all men would act so one by another; I should feel the benefit of it myself among others, for I have suffered deeply by ill tongues, I am sure.

_A_.--Well, however unjust you are to me, and to my neighbour too, I will not undeceive you at present; I think you do not deserve it.

He used a great many more words with him to convince him that he did not mean any discredit to his neighbour tradesman; but it was all one; he would have it be, that his declining to give his said neighbour a good character was giving him an ill character, which the other told him was a wrong inference. However, he found that the man stood by his own notion of it, and declined trusting the tradesman with the goods, though he was satisfied he (the tradesman) was a sufficient man.

Upon this, he was a little uneasy, imagining that he had been the cause of it, as indeed he had, next to the positive humour of the inquirer, though it was not really his fault; neither was the construction the other made of it just to his intention, for he aimed at freeing himself from all inquiries of that nature, but found there was no prevailing with him to understand it any other way than he did; so, to requite the man a little in his own way, he contrived the following method: he met with him two or three days after, and asked him if he had sold his goods to the person his neighbour?