,)
and having as yet only the expectation of a family, we thought we could
not do better than get John Varnish the painter, to do off a small
ticket, with "A Furnished Room to Let" on it, which we nailed out at the
window; having collected into it the choicest of our furniture, that it
might fit a genteeler lodger and produce a better rent--And a lodger soon
we got.

Dog on it! I think I see him yet. He was a blackaviced Englishman, with
curled whiskers and a powdered pow, stout round the waistband, and fond
of good eating, let alone drinking, as we found to our cost. Well, he
was our first lodger. We sought a good price, that we might, on
bargaining, have the merit of coming down a tait; but no, no--go away wi'
ye; it was dog-cheap to him. The half-guinea a-week was judged perfectly
moderate; but if all his debts were--yet I must not cut before the cloth.

Hang expenses! was the order of the day. Ham and eggs for breakfast, let
alone our currant jelly. Roast-mutton cold, and strong ale at twelve, by
way of check, to keep away wind from the stomach. Smoking roast-beef,
with scraped horse raddish, at four precisely; and toasted cheese, punch,
and porter, for supper. It would have been less, had all the things been
within ourselves. Nothing had we but the cauler new-laid eggs; then
there was Deacon Heukbane's butcher's account; and John Cony's spirit
account; and Thomas Burlings' bap account; and deevil kens how many more
accounts, that came all in upon us afterwards. But the crowning of all
was reserved for the end. It was no farce at the time, and kept our
heads down at the water edge for many a day. I was just driving the hot
goose along the seams of a Sunday jacket I was finishing for Thomas Clod
the ploughman, when the Englisher came in at the shop door, whistling
"Robert Adair," and "Scots wha ha'e wi' Wallace bled," and whiles, maybe,
churming to himself like a young blackbird;--but I have not patience to
go through with it. The long and the short of the matter, however, was,
that, after rummaging among my two or three webs of broadcloth on the
shelf, he pitched on a Manchester blue, five quarters wide, marked
CXD.XF, which is to say, three-and-twenty shillings the yard. I told him
it was impossible to make a pair of pantaloons to him in two hours; but
he insisted upon having them, alive or dead, as he had to go down the
same afternoon to dine with my Lord Duke, no less. I convinced him, that
if I