Eger.  It was not a very fertile one indeed, sir.

Sir Per.  The reverse, the reverse:  weel, sir, seeing myself in this unprofitable situation, I reflected deeply; I cast about my thoughts morning, noon, and night, and markt every man and every mode of prosperity,—­at last I concluded that a matrimonial adventure, prudently conducted, would be the readiest gait I could gang for the bettering of my condition, and accordingly I set about it:  now, sir, in this pursuit, beauty! beauty!—­ah! beauty often struck mine een, and played about my heart! and fluttered, and beat, and knocked, and knocked, but the devil an entrance I ever let it get;—­for I observed, sir, that beauty—­is generally—­a proud, vain, saucy, expensive, impertinent sort of a commodity.

Eger.  Very justly observed, sir.

Sir Per.  And therefore, sir, I left it to prodigals and coxcombs, that could afford to pay for it; and in its stead, sir, mark!  I looked out for an ancient, weel-jointured, superannuated dowager:—­a consumptive, toothless, ptisicky, wealthy widow,—­or a shrivelled, cadaverous piece of deformity in the shape of an izzard, or a appersi-and,—­or, in short, ainy thing, ainy thing that had the siller, the siller,—­for that, sir, was the north star of my affections.  Do you take me, sir; was nai that right?

Eger.  O! doubtless—­doubtless, sir.

Sir Per.  Now, sir, where do you think I ganged to look for this woman with the siller?—­nai till court, nai till playhouses or assemblies—­nai, sir.  I ganged till the kirk, till the anabaptist, independent, bradlonian, and muggletonian meetings; till the morning and evening service of churches and chapels of ease, and till the midnight, melting, conciliating love-feasts of the methodists; and there, sir, at last, I fell upon an old, slighted, antiquated, musty maiden, that looked—­ha, ha, ha! she looked just like a skeleton in a surgeon’s glass case.  Now, sir, this miserable object was religiously angry with herself and aw the world; had nai comfort but in metaphysical visions, and supernatural deliriums; ha, ha, ha!  Sir, she was as mad—­as mad as a Bedlamite.

Eger.  Not improbable, sir, there are numbers of poor creatures in the same condition.

Sir Per.  O! numbers—­numbers.  Now, sir, this cracked creature used to pray, and sing, and sigh, and groan, and weep, and wail, and gnash her teeth constantly, morning and evening, at the Tabernacle in Moorfields:  and as soon as I found she had the siller, aha! guid traith, I plumpt me down upon my knees, close by her—­cheek by jowl—­and prayed, and sighed, and sung, and groaned, and gnashed my teeth as vehemently as she could do for the life of her; ay, and turned up the whites of mine een, till the strings awmost crackt again:—­I watcht her motions, handed her till her chair, waited on her home, got most religiously intimate with her in a week,—­married her in a fortnight, buried her in a month;—­touched the siller, and with a deep suit of mourning, a melancholy port, a sorrowful visage, and a joyful heart, I began the world again;—­and this, sir, was the first bow, that is, the first effectual bow, I ever made till the vanity of human nature:—­now, sir, do you understand this doctrine?