CHAPTER LX
This kind letter afforded me great consolation: I communicated it to Banter, and, at the same time, showed him her picture: he approved of her beauty and good sense, and could not help owning that my neglect of Miss Snapper was excusable, when such a fine creature engrossed my attention.
I began to be reconciled to my fate, and imagined, that, if I could contrive means of subsisting until my uncle should arrive, in case he were not already at home, he would enable me to do something effectual in behalf of my love and fortune; I therefore consulted Banter about a present supply, who no sooner understood that I had credit, with a tailor, than he advised me to take off two or three suits of rich clothes, and convert them into cash, by selling them at half-price to a salesman in Monmouth Street. I was startled at this proposal, which I thought savoured a little of fraud; he rendered it palatable, by observing that, in a few months, I might be in a condition to do everybody justice; and, in the meantime, I was acquitted by the honesty of my intention. I suffered myself to be persuaded by his salvo, by which my necessity, rather than my judgment, was convinced; and, when I found there were no accounts of the ship in which my uncle embarked, actually put the scheme in practice, and raised by it five-and-twenty guineas, paying him for his advice with the old five.