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 DISTRUSTFULNESS is an assumption
that injustice rules all men. The distrustful man, when he has sent a
slave to buy provisions, will send a second to find out exactly what he
paid. He will carry his money about with him, and sit down every hundred
yards to count it. In bed he suddenly asks his wife if the safe is locked
and the cupboards sealed and the bolt shut on the hall door. Though she
answers that everything is right, he leaps up from the blankets and without
taking time to put on half his clothes or his shoes, he gets hold of a
lamp and runs about to see to all these things, and thus scarcely gets
any sleep. He gets witnesses to be near when he demands interest from
those who owe him money, to prevent them trying to get out of the debt.
He is likely to send his cloak not where he will get it best cleaned,
but where the fuller will give him best security for its return. If comes
to ask a loan of drinking-cups, he prefers not to lend, and if it is a
relation or near friend he will be within an inch of trying them in the
fire, and weighing them, and demanding security before he lends them.
He will order the slave who attends him to walk before him and not behind,
to prevent him running off in the street. When people buy something from
him and say ‘Set the price to my account, I haven’t time to send the money
just now,’ he answers, Oh, don’t bother if you haven’t time, I’ll come
back to your house with you now.'
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