It was one of those parishes (I think few of them remain now) where the clerk's emoluments are large.

He also held other offices; was an agent for one or two companies, and was looked upon as an exceedingly substantial man for his station in life.

Perhaps he was less so than people imagined.

The old saying is all too true: "Nobody knows where the shoe pinches but he who wears it." Jabez Gum had his thorn, as a great many more of us have ours, if the outside world only knew it.

And Jabez, at odd moments, when the thorn pierced him very sharply, had been wont to compare his condition to St.
Paul's, and to wonder whether the pricks inflicted on that holy man could have bled as his own did.