r we
treat of soareth higher.

He is clean and neat in his person, not from a vainglorious desire of
setting himself forth to advantage in the eyes of the other sex,--with
which vanity too many of our young sparks nowadays are infected,--but to
do credit, as we say, to the office. For this reason, he evermore taketh
care that his desk or his books receive no soil; the which things he is
commonly as solicitous to have fair and unblemished as the owner of a
fine horse is to have him appear in good keep.

He riseth early in the morning,--not because early rising conduceth to
health, (though he doth not altogether despise that consideration,) but
chiefly to the intent that he may be first at the desk. There is his
post, there he delighteth to be, unless when his meals or necessity
calleth him away; which time he alway esteemeth as lost, and maketh as
short as possible.

He is temperate in eating and drinking, that he may preserve a clear
head and steady hand for his master's service. He is also partly induced
to this observation of the rules of temperance by his respect for
religion and the laws of his country; which things, it may once for all
be noted, do add especial assistances to his actions, but do not and
cannot furnish the main spring or motive thereto. His first ambition, as
appeareth all along, is to be a good clerk; his next, a good Christian,
a good patriot, etc.

Correspondent to this, he keepeth himself honest, not for fear of the
laws, but because he hath observed how unseemly an article it maketh in
the day-book or ledger when a sum is set down lost or missing; it being
his pride to make these books to agree and to tally, the one side with
the other, with a sort of architectural symmetry and correspondence.

He marrieth, or marrieth not, as best suiteth with his employer's views.
Some merchants do the rather desire to have married men in their
counting-houses, because they think the married state a pledge for their
servants' integrity, and an incitement to them to be industrious; and it
was an observation of a late Lord-Mayor of London, that the sons of
clerks do generally prove clerks themselves, and that merchants
encouraging persons in their employ to marry, and to have families, was
the best method of securing a breed of sober, industrious young men
attached to the mercantile interest. Be this as it may, such a character
as we have been describing will wait till the pleasure of his employer
is know