Thornton is a good, easy, careless fellow, and might let me into a share of the booty: but then, in what games can I engage him ?" Here I passed this well-suited pair, and lost the remainder of their conversation.

"Well," thought I, "if this precious personage does starve at last, he will most richly deserve it, partly for his designs on the stranger, principally for his opinion of Thornton.

If he was a knave only, one might pity him; but a knave and fool both, are a combination of evil, for which there is no intermediate purgatory of opinion--nothing short of utter damnation." I soon arrived at Mr.Thornton's abode.

The same old woman, poring over the same novel of Crebillon, made me the same reply as before; and accordingly again I ascended the obscure and rugged stairs, which seemed to indicate, that the road to vice is not so easy as one generally supposes.

I knocked at the door, and receiving no answering acknowledgment, opened it at once.