But why this deceit? you will naturally ask. Listen, and tell me if you could have imagined a scheme so diabolical as the following ever entering into human brain. To carry out his base designs he hired a certain pedlar, one Michael Rag, well known to be a shady character, and envious of John Archer's comparatively easy circumstances, so having talked him over, if not by bribery, at least by instigating him in a manner suggested by his own natural cunning as calculated to excite the covetous disposition of the tool he intended to use for his own purposes, to purloin John Archer's silver watch, a present he had received from his master for his faithful services. This watch De Chevron represented to the pedlar as being one of superior workmanship, and far too good for a man of John Archer's position to wear. He blamed his uncle for lavishing handsome presents upon undeserving hangers-on. Who, after all, was John Archer? He (De Chevron) could remember him in worse circumstances even than the pedlar himself. Whence his good fortune? From his merit? Pooh! It was easy enough for any man to keep a good place when he had once got it, if he wasn't quite a fool. Then as to his getting it in the first place, mere luck. Why, as if there were not many a better man than John Archer for such a post. Was he more honest than any other? Bah! every man is honest until he is found out to be the contrary. Thus, first by raising the pedlar's cupidity by a vivid description of the watch, then by giving an additional stimulant to his envious nature by representing the owner of the watch as unworthy of such a present, he finally wound up by insinuating, rather than broadly stating, that the pedlar himself was a man of merit and deserved being in a better position than John Archer, if all men had their rights. In fact, such was De Chevron's power of persuasion, that he at last, by dint of subtle arguments, made irresistible by the courteous grace by which they were set off, and, moreover, making it appear that he himself could have no object in giving such advice, that he at length succeeded in making the pedlar believe that he was a very ill-used man, and that as fortune had been so niggardly to him, considering his merits, whilst she squandered her favours on the undeserving, that it was quite excusable in him; nay, it was his duty, and nothing more than what he owed to himself to seek his own fortune by appropriating a portion of that superfluous wealth unjustly held back from him by the capricious goddess and given into unworthy hands.