The more unpolite I was with people, the more obstinate they became.

I could not refuse everybody.
While I made myself a thousand enemies by my refusals, I was incessantly a slave to my complaisance, and, in whatever manner I made my engagements, I had not an hour in a day to myself.
I then perceived it was not so easy to be poor and independent, as I had imagined.

I wished to live by my profession: the public would not suffer me to do it.

A thousand means were thought of to indemnify me for the time I lost.

The next thing would have been showing myself like Punch, at so much each person.