Matthew's affection, we are led to believe, was less for this man's qualities than for his property; and with that characteristic prudence injuriously called cunning, he resolved to live on good terms with him, so that, although he should never run the risk of engaging actively in the acquirement of capital, he might (knowing how bare of branches Joshua's family tree was) at some future period get possession of whatever this receiver-general might have accumulated: indeed, while quite a lad he continually used to say when shewing Joshua's cellars full of iron to any acquaintance--"I consider that one day or other these will all be mine, Sir;" and so eventually they were. It was in allusion to these hoards, and the means and times by which they were collected, that in the quaint biblical facetiousness of that age it used to be observed, that if Joshua of old had known how to do his business by night, as well as his modern namesake, he need not have desired the sun to stand still; a witticism which Speed records with great delight. It is after this era in Matthew's life that all the writers are puzzled; it has been ascertained that he was apprenticed to a trade, but what that trade was, or what affinity it bore to the traffic he subsequently carried on, nobody has yet decided. The incident which drove him from his master's house was, as is generally allowed, a beating (or more technically speaking a basting) which the kitchen wench gave him as a punishment for purloining a sop in the pan, a mode of acquiring, to which his admiration of Joshua's proceedings had probably given him a turn. It is also added, that Whittington had a sneaking kindness, or what is politely called a _tendre_ for the housemaid of the family, who espoused his cause in this very quarrel, and that he never ceased to retain a feeling of gratitude towards one of his fellow-servants commensurate with his just animosity towards the other. There is a probability on the face of this fact, which is opposed to the story of his attachment to Miss Alice Fitzwarren, his master's daughter. Affections or antipathies formed in youth, and nurtured through life, always manifest themselves in the more marked peculiarities of age, and certain it is that Mr. Whittington when in very different circumstances, maintained his rooted dislike to a Cook, while his favourite remembrance of the housemaid's kindness evinced itself in the respect he openly professed for a Broom, (however cracked or crazy it might be) wherever he saw one.