The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

He shook his head and remained silent, and a very melancholy evening we

had; however, we supped together, and lay together that night, and when

we had almost supped he looked a little better and more cheerful, and

called for a bottle of wine. 'Come, my dear,' says he, 'though the

case is bad, it is to no purpose to be dejected. Come, be as easy as

you can; I will endeavour to find out some way or other to live; if you

can but subsist yourself, that is better than nothing. I must try the

world again; a man ought to think like a man; to be discouraged is to

yield to the misfortune.' With this he filled a glass and drank to me,

holding my hand and pressing it hard in his hand all the while the wine

went down, and protesting afterwards his main concern was for me.

It was really a true, gallant spirit he was of, and it was the more

grievous to me. 'Tis something of relief even to be undone by a man of

honour, rather than by a scoundrel; but here the greatest

disappointment was on his side, for he had really spent a great deal of

money, deluded by this madam the procuress; and it was very remarkable

on what poor terms he proceeded. First the baseness of the creature

herself is to be observed, who, for the getting #100 herself, could be

content to let him spend three or four more, though perhaps it was all

he had in the world, and more than all; when she had not the least

ground, more than a little tea-table chat, to say that I had any

estate, or was a fortune, or the like. It is true the design of

deluding a woman of fortune, if I had been so, was base enough; the

putting the face of great things upon poor circumstances was a fraud,

and bad enough; but the case a little differed too, and that in his

favour, for he was not a rake that made a trade to delude women, and,

as some have done, get six or seven fortunes after one another, and

then rifle and run away from them; but he was really a gentleman,

unfortunate and low, but had lived well; and though, if I had had a

fortune, I should have been enraged at the slut for betraying me, yet

really for the man, a fortune would not have been ill bestowed on him,

for he was a lovely person indeed, of generous principles, good sense,

and of abundance of good-humour.

We had a great deal of close conversation that night, for we neither of

us slept much; he was as penitent for having put all those cheats upon

me as if it had been felony, and that he was going to execution; he

offered me again every shilling of the money he had about him, and said

he would go into the army and seek the world for more.