Simon, taking off his cap with much respect, answered in such a clear and Modest way, and with a voice that had so much feeling and natural music in it, that the worthy manufacturer was greatly taken with him.

“That’s no Deg,” said he, when he again entered the counting-house, “not a bit of it.  He’s all Goodrick, or whatever his mother’s name was, every inch of him.”

The consequence of that interview was, that Simon Deg was very soon after Perched on a stool in Mr. Spires’s counting-house, where he continued till he was twenty-two.  Mr. Spires had no son, only a single daughter; and such were Simon Deg’s talents, attention to business, and genial disposition, that at that age Mr. Spires gave him a share in the concern.  He was himself now getting less fond of exertion than he had been, and placed the most implicit reliance on Simon’s judgment and general management.  Yet no two men could be more unlike in their opinions beyond the circle of trade.  Mr. Spires was a staunch tory of the staunch old school.  He was for Church and King, and for things remaining forever as they had been.  Simon, on the other hand, had liberal and reforming notions.  He was for the improvement of the people, and their admission to many privileges.  Mr. Spires was therefore liked by the leading men of the place, and disliked by the people.  Simon’s estimation was precisely in the opposite direction.  But this did not disturb their friendship; it required another disturbing cause—­and that came.

Simon Deg and the daughter of Mr. Spires grew attached to each other; and as the father had thought Simon worthy of becoming a partner in the business, neither of the young people deemed that he would object to a partnership of a more domestic description.  But here they made a tremendous mistake.  No sooner was such a proposal hinted at, than Mr. Spires burst forth with the fury of all the winds from the bag of Ulysses.

“What! a Deg aspire to the hand of the sole heiress of the enormously opulent Spires?”

The very thought almost cut the proud manufacturer off with an apoplexy.  The hosts of a thousand paupers rose up before him, and he was black in the face.  It was only by a prompt and bold application of leeches and lancet that the life of the great man was saved.  But there was an end of all further friendship between himself and the expectant Simon.  He insisted that he should withdraw from the concern, and it was done.  Simon, who felt his own dignity deeply wounded too, for dignity he had, though the last of a long line of paupers—­his own dignity, not his ancestors’—­took silently, yet not unrespectfully, his share—­a good, round sum, and entered another house of business.