We know he could not; for the tailor had none, and
that was because he had not an enemy. No man in friendship with the
world ever has calves to his legs. To sum up all in a paradox of our
own invention, for which we claim the full credit of originality, we
now assert, that more men have risen in the world by the injury of their
enemies, than have risen by the kindness of their friends. You may take
this, reader, in any sense; apply it to hanging if you like, it is still
immutably and immovably true.
One day Neal sat cross-legged, as tailors usually sit, in the act of
pressing a pair of breeches; his hands were placed, backs up, upon the
handle of his goose, and his chin rested upon the back of his hands. To
judge from his sorrowful complexion one would suppose that he sat rather
to be sketched as a picture of misery, or of heroism in distress, than
for the industrious purpose of pressing the seams of a garment. There
was a great deal of New Burlington-street pathos in his countenance;
his face, like the times, was rather out of joint; "the sun was just
setting, and his golden beams fell, with a saddened splendor, athwart
the tailor's"----the reader may fill up the picture.
In this position sat Neal, when Mr. O'Connor, the schoolmaster, whose
inexpressibles he was turning for the third time, entered the workshop.
Mr.
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