I, like my great
predecessor Whittington, might have heard in that peal a prediction of
my future exaltation; certain it is I did not; and, wearied with my
journey, I took up my lodging for the night at a very humble house near
Smithfield, to which I had been kindly recommended by the driver of a
return postchaise, of whose liberal offer of the moiety of his bar to
town I had availed myself at Barnet.

As it is not my intention to deduce a moral from my progress in the
world at this period of my life, I need not here dilate upon the good
policy of honesty, or the advantages of temperance and perseverance, by
which I worked my way upwards, until after meriting the confidence of an
excellent master, I found myself enjoying it fully. To his business I
succeeded at his death, having several years before, with his sanction,
married a young and deserving woman, about my own age, of whose prudence
and skill in household matters I had long had a daily experience.

To be brief, Providence blessed my efforts and increased my means; I
became a wholesale dealer in every thing, from barrels of gunpowder down
to pickled herrings; in the civic acceptation of the word I was a
merchant, amongst the vulgar I am called a dry-salter. I accumulated
wealth; with my fortune my family also grew, and one male Scropps, and
four female ditto, grace my board at least once in every week.

Passing over the minor gradations of my life, the removal from one
residence to another, the enlargement of this warehouse, the rebuilding
of that, the anxiety of a canvass for common council man, activity in
the company of which I am liveryman, inquests, and vestries, and ward
meetings, and all the other pleasing toils to which an active citizen is
subject, let us come at once to the first marked epoch of my life--the
year of my Shrievalty. The announcement of my nomination and election
filled Mrs. S. with delight; and when I took my children to Great Queen
Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, to look at the gay chariot brushing up for
me, I confess I felt proud and happy to be able to show my progeny the
arms of London, those of the Spectacle Makers' Company, and those of the
Scroppses (recently found at a trivial expense) all figuring upon the
same panels. They looked magnificent upon the pea-green ground, and the
wheels, "white picked out crimson," looked so chaste, and the
hammercloth, and the fringe, and the festoons, and the Scropps' crests
all looked so rich, a