y
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 down. What's the expense of a bit daigh, half an
ounce weight, pirled round wi' the knuckles into a case, and filled half
full o' salt and water, wi' twa or three nips o' braxy floating about
in't? Just naething ava;--and consider on a winter night, when
iceshockles are hinging from the tiles, and stomachs relish what is warm
and tasty, what a sale they can get, if they go about jingling their
little bell, and keep the genuine article! Then ye ken in the afternoon,
he can show that he has two strings to his bow; and have a wheen cookies,
either new baked for ladies' tea-parties, or the yesterday's auld
shopkeepers' het up i' the oven again--which is all to ae purpose."

"Are ye really in your seven natural senses--or can I believe my ain een?
I could almost believe some warlock had thrown glamour into them," said
Nanse staring me broad in the face.

"Take a good look, gudewife, for seeing's believing," quo' I; and then
continued, without drawing breath or bridle, at full birr--

"Or if the baking line does not please ye, what say ye to binding him
regularly to a man-cook? There he'll see life in all its variorums. Losh
keep us a', what an insight into the secrets of roasting, brandering,
frying, boiling, baking, and brewing--nicking of geese's craigs--hacking
the necks of dead chickens, and cutting out the tongues of leeving
turkeys! Then what a steaming o' fat soup in the nostrils; and siccan a
collection o' fine smells, as would persuade a man that he could fill his
stomach through his nose! No weather can reach such cattle: it may be a
storm of snow twenty feet deep, or an even-down pour of rain, washing the
very cats off the house tops; when a weaver is shivering at his loom,
with not a drop of blood at his finger nails, and a tailor like myself,
so numb with cauld, that instead of dr