My name is Scropps--I _am_ an Alderman--I _was_ Sheriff--I _have been_
Lord Mayor--and the three great eras of my existence were the year of my
shrievalty, the year of my mayoralty, and the year after it. Until I had
passed through this ordeal I had no conception of the extremes of
happiness and wretchedness to which a human being may be carried, nor
ever believed that society presented to its members an eminence so
exalted as that which I once touched, or imagined a fall so great as
that which I experienced. I came originally from that place to which
persons of bad character are said to be sent--I mean Coventry, where my
father for many years contributed his share to the success of
parliamentary candidates, the happiness of new married couples, and even
the gratification of ambitious courtiers, by taking part in the
manufacture of ribands for election cockades, wedding favours, and
cordons of chivalry; but trade failed, and, like his betters, he became
bankrupt, but, unlike his betters, without any consequent advantage to
himself; and I, at the age of fifteen, was thrown upon the world with
nothing but a strong constitution, a moderate education, and fifteen
shillings and eleven pence three farthings in my pocket.
With these qualifications I started from my native town on a pedestrian
excursion to London; and although I fell into none of those romantic
adventures of which I had read at school, I met with more kindness than
the world generally gets credit for, and on the fourth day after my
departure, having slept soundly, if not magnificently, every night, and
eaten with an appetite which my mode of travelling was admirably
calculated to stimulate, reached the great metropolis, having preserved
of my patrimony, no less a sum than nine shillings and seven pence.
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