f taking out a patent for making
hair-oil from rancid butter. If he succeeds it will make the callant's
fortune. But he must not marry Madamoselle Peroukey without my especial
consent, as Nanse says, that her having a French woman for her
daughter-in-law would be the death of her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE--CONCLUSION

On first commencing this memoir of my life, I put pen to paper with the
laudable view of handing down to posterity--to our children, and to their
children's children--the accidents, adventures, and mischances that may
fall to the lot of a man placed by Providence even in the loundest
situation of life, where he seemed to lie sheltered in the bield of peace
and privacy;--and, at that time, it was my intention to have carried down
my various transactions to this dividual day and date. My materials,
however, have swelled on my hand like summer corn under sunny showers;
one thing has brought another to remembrance; sowds of bypast marvels
have come before my mind's eye in the silent watches of the night,
concerning the days when I sat working crosslegged on the board; and if I
do not stop at this critical juncture--to wit, my retiring from trade,
and the settlement of my dear and only son Benjie in an honourable way of
doing; as who dares to deny that the barber and hair-cutting line is a
safe and honourable employment?--I do not know when I might get to the
end of my tether; and the interest which every reasonable man must take
in the extraordinary adventures of my early years, might be grievously
marred and broken in upon through the garrulity of old age.

Perhaps I am going a little too far when I say, that the whole world
cannot fail to be interested in the occurrences of my life; for since its
creation, which was not yesterday, I do not believe--and James Batter is
exactly of the same mind--that there ever was a subject concerning which
the bulk of mankind have not had two opinions. Knowing this to be the
case, I would be a great gomeril to expect that I should be the only
white swan that ever appeared; and that all parties in church and state,
who are for cutting each other's throats on every other great question,
should be unanimous only in what regards me. Englishmen, for instance,
will say that I am a bad speller, and that my language is kittle; and
such of the Irishers as can read, will be threaping that I have abused
their precious country; but, my certie, instead of blaming me for letting