8. Away, therefore, he went, equally warm with friendship and ambition, and left me to prepare acknowledgements against his return. At length he came back, and told me that he had met in his way a party going to breakfast in the country, that the ladies importuned him too much to be refused, and that having passed the morning with them, he was come back to dress himself for a ball, to which he was invited for the evening.
9. I have suffered several disappointments from taylors and perriwig-makers, who, by neglecting to perform their work, withheld my patrons from court, and once failed of an establishment for life by the delay of a servant, sent to a neighbouring shop to replenish a snuff-box.
10. At last I thought my solicitude at an end, for an office fell into the gift of _Hippodamus_'s father, who being then in the country, could not very speedily fill it, and whose fondness would not have suffered him to refuse his son a less reasonable request. _Hippodamus_ therefore set forward with great expedition, and I expected every hour an account of his success.
11. A long time I waited without any intelligence, but at last received a letter from Newmarket, by which I was informed, that the races were begun, and I knew the vehemence of his passion too well to imagine that he could refuse himself his favourite amusement.
12. You will not wonder that I was at last weary of the patronage of young men, especially as I found them not generally to promise much greater fidelity as they advanced in life; for I observed that what they gained in steadiness, they lost in benevolence, and grew colder to my interest as they became more diligent to promote their own.
13. I was convinced that their liberality was only profuseness, that, as chance directed, they were equally generous to vice and virtue, that they were warm, but because they were thoughtless, and counted the support of a friend only amongst other gratifications of passion.
14. My resolution was now to ingratiate myself with men whose reputation was established, whose high stations enabled them to prefer me, and whose age exempted them from sudden changes of inclination; I was considered as a man of parts, and therefore easily found admission to the table of _Hilarius_, the celebrated orator, renowned equally for the extent of his knowledge, the elegance of his diction, and the acuteness of his wit.