I have known him to come home gorged with sponge-cakes, the original penny still in his mouth.
So notorious throughout the neighbourhood did this dishonest practice of his become, that, after a time, the majority of the local tradespeople refused to serve him at all.

Only the exceptionally quick and able-bodied would attempt to do business with him.
Then he took his custom further afield, into districts where his reputation had not yet penetrated.

And he would pick out shops kept by nervous females or rheumatic old men.
They say that the love of money is the root of all evil.

It seemed to have robbed him of every shred of principle.
It robbed him of his life in the end, and that came about in this way.

He had been performing one evening in Gadbut's room, where a few of us were sitting smoking and talking; and young Hollis, being in a generous mood, had thrown him, as he thought, a sixpence.