ABSTRACT
Sir Malcolm received me with much kindness, and laughed heartily when I expressed my astonishment at the early darkness which a deep London fog had spread over the day of my arrival. The ensuing morning he took great pleasure in shewing me the City; and was delighted with my admiration of its magnitude and opulence. But during the two dark dreary days that followed, I had full leisure, whilst confined in my new habitation, to reflect how useless to my uncle were the vast hoards of money / he possessed, if condemned to submit to the disgust and slavery of the life by which he had acquired them. In what was he better than the beggar who sat at his gate? – ‘Oh! for Scotland’s hills and plains! Oh! for fresh air and Gertrude!’ – I continually exclaimed, as pent up in a narrow chamber, and placed at a desk, I was day after day casting up, transcribing, abstracting and indexing accounts, bonds, bills, deeds, securities and documents of all descriptions, without the remotest hope of either terminating my labours, or being delivered from them. When I walked out, the immense riches exhibited in the shops around me astonished me; but a dirty little man no sooner / saw me beginning one of these excursions, than sharply placing himself before me – ‘Master Hamilton,’ he said, ‘we must not let you out of office: – step in if you please, – step in.’ This was my uncle’s servant – he was as meagre, as shrewd, and as poor in appearance as his master. – My room, the best in the house, was filthy; my uncle’s was somewhat worse; and the place in which the clerks sat and wrote was absolutely intolerable. Dinner was served at five; a lamp lighted the dark little apartment.4 Every thing bore the appearance of pinching economy and distress.
