thing to his own advantage.
He had that sort of sense which good men call cunning, and knaves
call wisdom. He was too prudent ever to do any thing so wrong that
the law could take hold of him; yet he was not over scrupulous about
the morality of an action, when the prospect of enriching himself by
it was very great, and the chance of hurting his character was
small. The corn he sent home to his customers was not always quite
so good as the samples he had produced at market; and he now and
then forgot to name some capital blemish in the horses he sold at
fair. He scorned to be guilty of the petty fraud of cheating in
weights and measures, for he thought that was a beggarly sin; but he
valued himself on his skill in making a bargain, and fancied it
showed his superior knowledge of the world to take advantage of the
ignorance of a dealer.

It was his constant rule to undervalue every thing he was about to
buy, and to overvalue every thing he was about to sell; but as he
seldom lost sight of his discretion, he avoided every thing that was
very shameful; so that he was considered merely as a hard dealer,
and a keen hand at a bargain. Now and then when he had been caught
in pushing his own advantage too far, he contrived to get out of the
scrape by turning the whole into a jest, saying it was a good take
in, a rare joke, and he had only a mind to divert himself with the
folly of his neighbor, who could be so easily imposed on.

Mr. Bragwell, however, in his way, set a high value on his
character: not indeed that he had a right sense of its worth; he did
not consider reputation as desirable because it increases influence,
and for that reason strengthens the hands of a good man, and
enlarges his sphere of usefulness: but he made the advantage of
reputation, as well as of every other good, center in himself. Had
he observed a strict attention to principle, he feared he should not
have got on so fast in the world as those do who consult expediency
rather than probity, while, without a certain degree of character,
he knew also, that he should forfeit that confidence which put other
men in his power, and would set them as much on their guard against
him, as he, who thought all mankind pretty much alike, was on his
guard against them.

Mr. Bragwell had one favorite maxim; namely, that a man's success in
life was a sure proof of his wisdom: and that all failure and
misfortune was the consequence of a man's own folly. As this opi