e indulging in his favourite study, compound interest,
and, as far as he durst, putting it in practice, he in a short time
became rich. But, as his substance increased, he did not confine
himself to portable articles, or such things as are usually taken in
pledge by the members of his profession; but he took estates in
pledge, receiving the title-deeds as his security; and in such cases
he did exact his compound interest to the last farthing to which he
could stretch it. He neither knew the meaning of generosity nor mercy.
Shakspere's beautiful apostrophe to the latter god-like attribute in
the "Merchant of Venice," would have been flat nonsense in the
estimation of Watty. He had but one answer to every argument and to
every case, and which he laid to his conscience in all his
transactions (if he had a conscience), and that was--"A bargain's a
bargain!" This was his ten times repeated phrase every day. It was the
doctrine by which he swore; and Shylock would have died wi' envy to
have seen Watty exacting his "_pound o' flesh_." I have only to tell
ye that he has been twice married. The first time was to a widow four
years older than his mother, wi' whom he got ten thousand. The second
time was to a maiden lady, who had been a coquette and a flirt in her
day, but who, when the deep crow-feet upon her brow began to reflect
sermons from her looking-glass, became a patroniser of piety and
religious institutions. Watty heard o' her fortune, and o' her
disposition and habits. He turned an Episcopalian, because she was
one. He became a sitter and a regular attender in the same pew in the
church. He began his courtship by opening the pew-door to her when he
saw her coming, before the sexton reached it. He next sought her out
the services for the day in the prayer-book--he had it always open,
and ready to put in her hand. He dusted the cushion on which she was
to sit with his handkerchief, as she entered the pew. He, in short,
showed her a hundred little pious attentions. The sensibility of the
converted flirt was affected by them. At length he offered her his arm
from the pew to the hackney-coach or sedan-chair which waited for her
at the church-door; and, eventually, he led her to the altar in the
seventy-third year of her age; when, to use his own words, he married
her thirty thousand pounds, and took the old woman before the minister
as a witness. Such, sir, is all I know concerning Cautious Watty.

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