Esau grasped my hand, and he shook it as though he would have taken it from the elbow. I was certain that he would obtain the situation which I had in view for him. We sat down together--we talked of old times, when the feelings of our hearts were young; and, amongst other things, we spoke of Jessy Mortimer. I sat--I drank with him--we became happy together--we became mad together. My Jessy--Jessy Mortimer was before me. Her presence filled my thoughts--it overshadowed me. I could think of nothing else--I could speak of nothing else. I drank to her in bumpers; but Esau sat as calm as a judge with the black cap upon his head. I marvelled that the man had so little of what is called sympathy in his soul. He appeared before me as a dead man--a thing that moved merely as it was moved. I almost despised, and yet I trusted him, because he was connected with the part of the country to which I belonged. Now, as I have informed you, we sat together, we drank together, and the name of Jessy Mortimer overcame me; but I sat till I forgot her, until I forgot myself--my companion--everything! In this state I was left sitting; and when consciousness returned, I was alone, bewildered. My companion had left me. My first sensation was that of shame--of burning shame. I felt that I had abused the time and the confidence of my employer, and the thought rendered me wretched. It was two days before I ventured to call again at the office, where I had become a confidential clerk. My master passed me as I entered, but he neither spoke to nor noticed me. His coldness stung me. I felt my guiltiness burning over me. But my confusion was increased, when I learned that I was not only discharged, but that my place was to be supplied by Esau Taylor! "Impossible!" I exclaimed. "Deem it so," said my informant. "But you have cherished an adder that has stung you; and, with all your knowledge, you are ignorant of the world, and of the people that live, breathe, and act in it. Take my counsel, and regard every man as though he were your enemy, until you have proved him to be your friend." There was something in his words that more than restored my wandering thoughts into their proper channel. I found that I had performed an act of kindness towards a villain--for I had not only treated Esau Taylor hospitably, but knowing that in London a good coat is of as much importance as a good character, I had furnished him with wearing apparel from my own wardrobe. A few days afterwards I met him in the Strand, arrayed in my garments, and he passed me with a supercilious air, as though I were a being only fit to be despised. I walked on as though I saw him not, conscious that, if he had a soul within him, it must be burning with the coals of fire which I had heaped upon his head. I soon found it was much easier to lose a good situation than to obtain an indifferent one, and that one act of folly might accomplish what a thousand of repentances could not retrieve.