I have just now caught myself in the fact; for I have complained to you as bitterly of my customers as I formerly used to do when I was the tailor: but in reality, though there were some few persons of very great quality, and some others, who never paid their debts, yet those were but a few, and I had a method of repairing this loss.

My customers I divided under three heads: those who paid ready money, those who paid slow, and those who never paid at all.
The first of these I considered apart by themselves, as persons by whom I got a certain but small profit.

The two last I lumped together, making those who paid slow contribute to repair my losses by those who did not pay at all.

Thus, upon the whole, I was a very inconsiderable loser, and might have left a fortune to my family, had I not launched forth into expenses which swallowed up all my gains.

I had a wife and two children.
These indeed I kept frugally enough, for I half starved them; but I kept a mistress in a finer way, for whom I had a country-house, pleasantly situated on the Thames, elegantly fitted up and neatly furnished.
This woman might very properly be called my mistress, for she was most absolutely so; and though her tenure was no higher than by my will, she domineered as tyrannically as if my chains had been riveted in the strongest manner.