eatest favour in the world, he could not keep his hands out
of your pocket till you had done it. In short, he has rogued himself out
of a dozen fortunes, and a hundred friends, and managed, with incredible
dexterity and success, to cheat himself into beggary and a pot of beer."

"I beg your pardon," said I, "but I think a sketch of your own life must
be more amusing than that of any one else: am I impertinent in asking
for it?"

"Not at all," replied Mr. Gordon; "you shall have it in as few words as
possible."

"I was born a gentleman, and educated with some pains; they told me I
was a genius, and it was not very hard to persuade me of the truth of
the assertion. I wrote verses to a wonder--robbed orchards according
to military tactics--never played at marbles, without explaining to
my competitors the theory of attraction--and was the best informed,
mischievous, little rascal in the whole school. My family were in great
doubt what to do with so prodigious a wonder; one said the law, another
the church, a third talked of diplomacy, and a fourth assured my mother,
that if I could but be introduced at court, I should be lord chamberlain
in a twelvemonth. While my friends were deliberating, I took the
liberty of deciding; I enlisted, in a fit of loyal valour, in a marching
regiment; my friends made the best of a bad job, and bought me an
ensigncy.

"I recollect I read Plato the night before I went to battle; the next
morning they told me I ran away. I am sure it was a malicious invention,
for if I had, I should have recollected it; whereas I was in such a
confusion that I cannot remember a single thing that happened in the
whole course of that day. About six months afterwards, I found myself
out of the army, and in gaol; and no sooner had my relations released me
from the latter predicament, than I set off on my travels. At Dublin, I
lost my heart to a rich widow (as I thought); I married her, and found
her as poor as myself. God knows what would have become of me, if I had
not taken to drinking; my wife scorned to be outdone by me in any thing;
she followed my example, and at the end of a year I followed her to
the grave. Since then I have taken warning, and been scrupulously
sober.--Betty, my love, another pint of purl.

"I was now once more a freeman in the prime of my life; handsome, as you
see, gentlemen, and with the strength and spirit of a young Hercules.
Accordingly I dried my tears, turned marker by night, at