enkinson', replied I, 'thank heaven my children are pretty
tolerable in morals, and if they be good, it matters little for the
rest.'

'I fancy, sir,' returned my fellow prisoner, 'that it must give you
great comfort to have this little family about you.'

'A comfort, Mr Jenkinson,' replied I, 'yes it is indeed a comfort, and I
would not be without them for all the world; for they can make a
dungeon seem a palace. There is but one way in this life of wounding my
happiness, and that is by injuring them.'

'I am afraid then, sir,' cried he, 'that I am in some measure culpable;
for I think I see here (looking at my son Moses) one that I have
injured, and by whom I wish to be forgiven.'

My son immediately recollected his voice and features, though he had
before seen him in disguise, and taking him by the hand, with a smile
forgave him. 'Yet,' continued he, 'I can't help wondering at what you
could see in my face, to think me a proper mark for deception.'

'My dear sir,' returned the other, 'it was not your face, but your white
stockings and the black ribband in your hair, that allured me. But no
disparagement to your parts, I have deceived wiser men than you in my
time; and yet, with all my tricks, the blockheads have been too many for
me at last.'

'I suppose,' cried my son, 'that the narrative of such a life as yours
must be extremely instructive and amusing.'

'Not much of either,' returned Mr Jenkinson. 'Those relations which
describe the tricks and vices only of mankind, by increasing our
suspicion in life, retard our success. The traveller that distrusts
every person he meets, and turns back upon the appearance of every man
that looks like a robber, seldom arrives in time at his journey's end.

'Indeed I think from my own experience, that the knowing one is the
silliest fellow under the sun. I was thought cunning from my very
childhood; when but seven years old the ladies would say that I was a
perfect little man; at fourteen I knew the world, cocked my hat, and
loved the ladies; at twenty, though I was perfectly honest, yet every
one thought me so cunning, that not one would trust me. Thus I was at
last obliged to turn sharper in my own defence, and have lived
ever since, my head throbbing with schemes to deceive, and my heart
palpitating with fears of detection.

'I used often to laugh at your honest simple neighbour Flamborough,
and one way or another generally cheated him once a year. Yet still the
hon