text:  While the steadiest (I was very near saying the only steady man) among our mutual acquaintance who looked at every sixpence before he spent it checked his own washing-lists went to bed at ten o'clock and was in short an exemplary character (he was held out to me; on my first entrance as a valuable acquaintance for any young man but I soon despaired of successfully imitating so bright a model)--well this gentleman having been taken into partnership somewhat prematurely perhaps on the strength of the aforesaid reputation by his father's firm--they were Liverpool merchants of high standing--had thought proper disgusted probably with the dissipations and immoralities of trade to retire to America in search of purity and independence without going through the form of closing his accounts with the house