JOB THORNBERRY, in a Night Gown, and BUR._

_Bur._ Don't take on so--don't you, now! pray, listen to reason.

_Job._ I won't.

_Bur._ Pray do!

_Job._ I won't. Reason bid me love my child, and help my
friend:--what's the consequence? my friend has run one way, and
broke up my trade; my daughter has run another, and broke my----No,
she shall never have it to say she broke my heart. If I hang myself
for grief, she shan't know she made me.

_Bur._ Well, but, master--

_Job._ And reason told me to take you into my shop, when the fat
church wardens starved you at the workhouse,--damn their want of
feeling for it!--and you were thump'd about, a poor, unoffending,
ragged-rump'd boy, as you were--I wonder you hav'n't run away from
me too.

_Bur._ That's the first real unkind word you ever said to me. I've
sprinkled your shop two-and-twenty years, and never miss'd a
morning.

_Job._ The bailiffs are below, clearing the goods: you won't have
the trouble any longer.

_Bur._ Trouble! Lookye, old Job Thornberry--

_Job._ Well! What, you are going to be saucy to me, now I'm ruin'd?

_Bur._ Don't say one cutting thing after another.--You have been as
noted, all round our town, for being a kind man, as being a blunt
one.

_Job._ Blunt or sharp, I've been honest. Let them look at my
ledger--they'll find it right. I began upon a little; I made that
little great, by industry; I never cringed to a customer, to get him
into my books, that I might hamper him with an overcharged bill, for
long credit; I earn'd my fair profits; I paid my fair way; I break
by the treachery of a friend, and my first dividend will be
seventeen shillings in the pound. I wish every tradesman in England
may clap his hand on his heart, and say as much, when he asks a
creditor to sign his certificate.

_Bur._ 'Twas I kept your ledger, all the time.

_Job._ I know you did.

_Bur._ From the time you took me out of the workhouse.

_Job._ Psha! rot the workhouse!

_Bur._ You never mention'd it to me yourself till to-day.

_Job._ I said it in a hurry.

_Bur._ And I've always remember'd it at leisure. I don't want to
brag, but I hope I've been found faithful. It's rather hard to tell
poor John Bur, the workhouse boy, after clothing, feeding, and
making him your man of trust, for two and twenty years, that you
wonder he don't run away from you, now you're in trouble.

_Job._ [_Affected._] John--I beg your pardon.