ak' your will of the business,
gudeman; and if ye dinna mak' him an admiral, just mak' him what ye
like."

Now is the time, thought I to myself, to carry out my point, finding the
drappikie I had taken with Donald M'Naughton, in settling his account for
the green jacket, still working in my noddle, and giving me a power of
words equal to Mr Blouster, the Cameronian preacher,--now is the time,
for I still saw the unleavened pride of womankind wambling within her
like a serpent that has got a knock on the pow, and been cast down but
not destroyed; so taking a hearty snuff out of my box, and drawing it up
first one nostril, then another, syne dighting my finger and thumb on my
breek-knees, "What think ye," said I, "of a sweep? Were it not for
getting their faces blacked like savages, a sweep is not such a bad trade
after a'; though, to be sure, going down lums six stories high,
head-foremost, and landing upon the soles of their feet upon the
hearth-stone, like a kittlin, is no just so pleasant." Ye observe, it
was only to throw cold wayter on the unthrifty flame of a mother's pride
that I said this, and to pull down uppishness from its heathenish temple
in the heart, head-foremost. So I looked to her, to hear how she would
come on.

"Haivers, haivers," said Nanse, birsing up like a cat before a cooley.
"Sweep, say ye? I would sooner send him up wi' Lunardi to the man of the
moon; or see him banished, shackled neck and heels, to Botany Bay."

"A weel, a weel," answered I, "what notion have ye of the packman line?
We could fill his box with needles, and prins, and tape, and hanks of
worsted, and penny thimbles, at a small expense; and, putting a stick in
his hand, send him abroad into the wide world to push his fortune."

The wife looked dumfoundered. Howsoever--"Or breed him a rowley-powley
man," continued I, "to trail about the country frequenting fairs; and
dozing thro' the streets selling penny cakes to weans, out of a basket
slung round the neck with a leather strap; and parliaments, and quality,
brown and white, and snaps well peppered, and gingerbread nits, and so
on. The trade is no a bad ane, if creatures would only learn to be
careful."

"Mansie Wauch, Mansie Wauch, hae ye gane out o' yere wuts?" cried
Nanse--"are ye really serious?"

I saw what I was about, so went on without pretending to mind her. "Or
what say ye to a penny-pie-man? I'fegs, it's a cozy birth, and ane that
gars the cappers birl dow