om new faces and surroundings, and partly because I was sure
that such would not have been my uncle's wish.

Instead I set myself to play and outpass his game. He had died very
rich; I determined that I would die five or ten times richer; the
richest man in England if I could, not because I cared for money, of
which indeed I spent but little upon myself, but because the getting
of it and the power that it brought, seemed to me the highest kind
of sport. So bending my mind to the matter I doubled and trebled his
enterprises on this line and on that, and won and won again, for even
where skill and foresight failed, Fortune stood my friend with a such
strange persistence that at length I became superstitious and grew
frightened of her gifts. Also I took pains to hide my great riches from
the public eye, placing much of them in the names of others whom I could
trust, and living most modestly in the same old house, lest I should
become a man envied by the hungry and marked for plunder by the
spendthrift great.

It was during the summer following my uncle's death that I went to the
wharves to see to the unloading of a ship that came in from Venice,
bearing many goods from the East on my account, such as ivory, silks,
spices, glass, carpets, and I know not what. Having finished my business
and seen these precious things warehoused, I handed over the checking of
a list of them to another and turned to seek my horse.

Then it was that I saw a number of half-grown lads and other idlers
mobbing a man who stood among them wrapped in a robe of what looked like
tattered sheepskin, yet was not because the wool on it was of a reddish
hue and very long and soft, which robe was thrown over his head hiding
his face. At this man--a tall figure who stood there patiently like
a martyr at the stake--these lewd fellows were hurling offal, such as
fishes' heads and rotted fruits that lay in plenty on the quay, together
with coarse words. "Blackamoor" was one I caught.

Such sights were common enough, but there was a quiet dignity of
bearing about this victim which moved me, so that I went to the rabble
commanding them to desist. One of them, a rough bumpkin, not knowing
who I was, pushed me aside, bidding me mind my own business, whereupon,
being very strong, I dealt him such a blow between the eyes that he
went down like a felled ox and lay there half stunned. His companions
beginning to threaten me, I blew upon my whistle, whereon two