Chapter 14 A
Cheerful TemperFROM my father I received the best inheritance, namely a
"good temper." "And who was my father?" That has nothing to do with
the good temper; but I will say he was lively, good-looking round,
and fat; he was both in appearance and character a complete
contradiction to his profession. "And pray what was his profession
and his standing in respectable society?" Well, perhaps, if in the
beginning of a book these were written and printed, many, when they
read it, would lay the book down and say, "It seems to me a very
miserable title, I don't like things of this sort." And yet my
father was not a skin-dresser nor an executioner; on the contrary,
his employment placed him at the head of the grandest people of the
town, and it was his place by right. He had
