lawyer useful in carrying on some proceedings against his poor neighbours, which the delicacy of more established practitioners in the law might possibly have boggled at; and he had grown into consequence with the baronet, from that pliancy of disposition which was so suited to his service.
Not that sir William was naturally cruel or oppressive; but he had an exalted idea of the consequence which a great estate confers on its possessor, which was irritated beyond measure when any favorite scheme of his was opposed by a man of little fortune, however just or proper his reasons for opposition might be; and, though a good sort of man, as I have before observed, his vengeance was implacable.
Young Camplin, who was nearly of an age with master Tommy Sindall, was frequently at sir William's in quality of a dependant companion to his son; and, before the baronet died, he had procured him an ensign's commission in a regiment, which some years after was stationed in one of our garrisons abroad, where Camplin, much against his inclination, was under a necessity of joining it, Here he happened to have an opportunity of obliging the chief in command by certain little offices, which, though not strictly honourable in themselves, are sanctified by the favour and countenance of many honourable men; and so much did they attach his commander to the ensign, that the latter was very soon promoted by his interest to the rank of a lieutenant, and not long after was enabled to make a very advantageous purchace of a company. With this patron also he returned to England, and was received at all times in a very familiar manner into his house; where he had the honour of carving good dishes which he was sometimes permitted to taste, of laughing at jokes which he was sometimes allowed to make, and carried an obsequious face into all companies, who were not treated with such extraordinary respect as to preclude his approach.
About this time his father, whose business in the country had not encreased since the death of sir William Sindall, had settled in London, where the reader will recollect the having met with him in a former chapter; but the captain, during his patron's residence

there, lived too near St. James's to make many visits to Gray's Inn; and after that gentleman left the town, he continued to move amidst a circle of men of fashion, with whom he contrived to live in a manner which has been often defined by the expression of, "nobody knows how."
Which sort of life he had followed uninterruptedly, without ever joining his