pounds from an overcharged bill;
and all the troubles which would be left, would be reduced to mere
shillings, pence, and farthings, as one may say."

_Fantom._ Your project would rivet the chains which mine is designed
to break.

_Trueman._ Sir, I have no projects. Projects are in general the
offspring of restlessness, vanity, and idleness. I am too busy for
projects, too contented for theories, and, I hope, have too much
honesty and humility for a philosopher. The utmost extent of my
ambition at present is, to redress the wrongs of a parish apprentice
who has been cruelly used by his master; indeed I have another
little scheme, which is to prosecute a fellow in our street who has
suffered a poor wretch in a workhouse, of which he had the care, to
perish through neglect, and you must assist me.

_Fantom._ The parish must do that. You must not apply to me for the
redress of such petty grievances. I own that the wrongs of the Poles
and South Americans so fill my mind as to leave me no time to attend
to the petty sorrows of workhouses and parish apprentices. It is
provinces, empires, continents, that the benevolence of the
philosopher embraces; every one can do a little paltry good to his
next neighbor.

_Trueman._ Every one can, but I do not see that every one does. If
they would, indeed, your business would be ready done at your hands,
and your grand ocean of benevolence would be filled with the drops
which private charity would throw into it. I am glad, however, you
are such a friend to the prisoners, because I am just now getting a
little subscription from our club, to set free our poor old friend,
Tom Saunders, a very honest brother tradesman, who got first into
debt, and then into jail, through no fault of his own, but merely
through the pressure of the times. We have each of us allowed a
trifle every week toward maintaining Tom's young family since he has
been in prison; but we think we shall do much more service to
Saunders, and, indeed, in the end, lighten our expense, by paying
down at once a little sum to restore him to the comforts of life,
and put him in the way of maintaining his family again. We have made
up the money all except five guineas; I am already promised four,
and you have nothing to do but give me the fifth. And so for a
single guinea, without any of the trouble, the meetings, and the
looking into his affairs, which we have had; which, let me tell you,
is the best, and to a man of business