ll sit nae
langer to hear ye gabbling nonsense like a magpie. Mak' Benjie what ye
like; but ye'll mak' me greet the een out o' my head."

"Hooly and fairly," said I; "Nanse, sit still like a woman, and hear me
out;" so, giving her a pat on the shouther, she sat her ways down, and I
resumed my discourse.

"Ye've heard, gudewife, from Benjie's own mouth, that he has made up his
mind to follow out the trade of a gentleman;--who has put such outrageous
notions in his head I'm sure I'll not pretend to guess at. Having never
myself been above daily bread, and constant work--when I could get it--I
dare not presume to speak from experience: but this I can say, from
having some acquaintances in the line, that, of all easy lives, commend
me to that of a gentleman's gentleman. It's true he's caa'd a flunky,
which does not sound quite the thing; but what of that? what's in a name?
pugh! it does not signify a bawbee--no, nor that pinch of snuff: for, if
we descend to particulars, we're all flunkies together, except his
Majesty on the throne.--Then William Pitt is his flunky--and half the
house of Commons are his flunkies, doing what he bids them, right or
wrong, and no daring to disobey orders, not for the hair in their
heads--then the Earl waits on my Lord Duke--Sir Something waits on my
Lord Somebody--and his tenant, Mr So-and-so, waits on him--and Mr
So-and-so has his butler--and the butler has his flunky--and the
shoeblack brushes the flunky's jacket--and so on. We all hang at one
another's tails like a rope of ingans--so ye observe, that any such
objection in the sight of a philosopher like our Benjie, would not weigh
a straw's weight.

"Then consider, for a moment--just consider, gudewife--what company a
flunky is every day taken up with, standing behind the chairs, and
helping to clean plates and porter; and the manners he cannot help
learning, if he is in the smallest gleg in the uptake, so that, when out
of livery, it is the toss up of a halfpenny whether ye find out the
difference between the man and the master. He learns, in fact,
everything. He learns French--he learns dancing in all its branches--he
learns how to give boots the finishing polish--he learns how to play at
cards, as if he had been born and bred an Earl--he learns, from pouring
the bottles, the names of every wine brewed abroad--he learns how to
brush a coat, so that, after six months' tear and wear, one without
spectacles would imagine it had only