There is a great deal of difference also between trusting a servant in your business, and trusting him with your business:  the first is leaving your business with him, the other is leaving your business to him.  He that trusts a servant in his business, leaves his shop only to him; but he that leaves his business to his servant, leaves his wife and children at his disposal—­in a word, such a trusting, or leaving the business to the servant, is no less than a giving up all to him, abandoning the care of his shop and all his affairs to him; and when such a servant is out of his time, the master runs a terrible risk, such as, indeed, it is not fit any tradesman should run—­namely, of losing the best of his business.

What I have been now saying, is of the tradesman leaving his business to his apprentices and servants, when they prove good, when they are honest and diligent, faithful, and industrious; and if there are dangers even in trusting good servants, and such as do their duty perfectly well, what, then, must it be when the business is left to idle, negligent, and extravagant servants, who both neglect their masters’ business and their own, who neither learn their trade for themselves, nor regard it for the interest of their masters?  If the first are a blessing to their masters, and may only be made dangerous by their carrying away the trade with them when they go, these are made curses to their masters early, for they lose the trade for themselves and their masters too.  The first carry the customers away with them, the last drive the customers away before they go.  ‘What signifies going to such a shop?’ say the ladies, either speaking of a mercer or a draper, or any other trade; ’there is nothing to be met with there but a crew of saucy boys, that are always at play when you come in, and can hardly refrain it when you are there:  one hardly ever sees a master in the shop, and the young rude boys hardly mind you when you are looking on their goods; they talk to you as if they cared not whether you laid out your money or no, and as if they had rather you were gone, that they might go to play again.  I will go there no more, not I.’

If this be not the case, then you are in danger of worse still, and that is, that they are often thieves—­idle ones are seldom honest ones—­nay, they cannot indeed be honest, in a strict sense, if they are idle:  but by dishonest, I mean downright thieves; and what is more dangerous than for an apprentice, to whom the whole business, the cash, the books, and all is committed, to be a thief?

For a tradesman, therefore, to commit his business thus into the hand of a false, a negligent, and a thievish servant, is like a man that travels a journey, and takes a highwayman into the coach with him:  such a man is sure to be robbed, and to be fully and effectually plundered, because he discovers where he hides his treasure.  Thus the tradesman places his confidence in the thief, and how should he avoid being robbed?