 means, he should be able to make the baronet's dubious thoughts preponderate on the side that would be least to Charles's advantage.
Gloss took the very first opportunity that he heard Sir Sidney say any thing tending to Charles's praise of remarking that good men were always the most easy to be imposed upon; and in this he said very true, for he was then going to impose upon Sir Sidney. He followed this declaration up with another, expressing his great reluctance that it should fall to his lot to bring forward accusations continually against Mr. Hazard, and, in particular, lest the censorious world—for he was sure Sir Sidney would do him more justice—should think he had a farther interest in such conduct than mere impartial justice, and a desire that a gentleman so dear to him, and indeed to the world in general, should undeceive himself in an opinion undeservedly entertained of one who not only plunged himself every day into some fresh vice, but indeed seemed to set shame and even decency at defiance. He insisted that benevolence extended to bad objects was a sort of crime; it was a tacit admission, though not approval, of their conduct; and might, in men to

whom the world looked up, as it did to Sir Sidney for example, be so construed. He took the liberty to add, that if his dear friend had a foible—though to be sure it was amiable in the extreme—this was it.
In short, after a proper dose of gilded flattery, he informed the baronet that it was then a week since our hero had turned a poor wretch, whom he had seduced from her friends, into the streets, with all the shocking circumstances of shame and wretchedness. The way he came to the truth of this was, the miserable creature, hearing he was one of Mr. Hazard's friends, had called upon him, and related the whole shocking business with such simplicity and apparent truth, that he had been induced to relieve her, and intended visiting her father, to try if he could not prevail on him to receive his repentant child into the bosom of her family.
Sir Sidney seemed greatly shocked with this story, and, upon Mr. Gloss's repeated entreaty, consented not only to see this unhappy girl, but to use his interest with her father, who was, it seems, a substantial tradesman, to take her back again.
Not to let the matter cool, the baronet saw the

young lady, was afterwards introduced to a person who kept wine vaults in Petty France, who confessed himself her father, and had
