Is a beggar of a fair estate, of whose wealth we may say as of other
men's unthriftiness, that it has brought him to this: when he had
nothing he lived in another kind of fashion. He is a man whom men hate
in his own behalf for using himself thus, and yet, being upon himself,
it is but justice, for he deserves it. Every accession of a fresh heap
bates him so much of his allowance, and brings him a degree nearer
starving. His body had been long since desperate, but for the reparation
of other men's tables, where he hoards meats in his belly for a month,
to maintain him in hunger so long. His clothes were never young in our
memory; you might make long epochas from them, and put them into the
almanack with the dear year[92] and the great frost,[93] and he is known
by them longer than his face. He is one never gave alms in his life, and
yet is as charitable to his neighbour as himself. He will redeem a penny
with his reputation, and lose all his friends to boot; and his reason
is, he will not be undone. He never pays anything but with strictness of
law, for fear of which only he steals not. He loves to pay short a
shilling or two in a great sum, and is glad to gain that when he can no
more. He never sees friend but in a journey to save the charges of an
inn, and then only is not sick; and his friends never see him but to
abuse him. He is a fellow indeed of a kind of frantic thrift, and one of
the strangest things that wealth can work.