I had not been long placed in the warehouse when I perceived that the agitations of the world were increasing: perhaps being then more in the public than when at the loom I only saw more of them. We often deceive ourselves, by imagining an augmentation of affairs, when we but sink deeper among the narrower and more rapid circles of the vortex. Of one fact, however, I certainly soon became sensible, a fast-widening breach between the higher and the lower classes. This produced a vague apprehension that the latter would in the end prevail; and as I had, during my attendance in the warehouse, rather too much solitary leisure, it filled me with many odd and strange speculations respecting society and the destinies of mankind. It would have been wiser had my reflections been directed to the craft and mysteries of trade; but I have never yet been wise.

I could sell cotton cloths and muslins adroitly at the prices fixed upon them; no clerk could make neater bills; but it never happened in all the time I was with Mr. Thrums, that I was required to purchase a single article—and it is in buying that the whole craft of trade consists— yet my steadiness, assiduity, and neat penmanship begat for me a reputation of some distinction, as a promising young man of business. I was thought to enjoy the light of the full orb of fortune, while only the half of its disk was revealed.