sum of
money. I affected indifference, and replied in a careless manner, "Some
trifle of sixty or seventy guineas." He stared in my face for some time,
and then asked if I was an Englishman? I answered in the negative. "You
are from Ireland then, Sir, I presume," said he. I made the same reply.
"Oh! perhaps," said he "you were born in one of our settlements abroad."
I still answered No. He seemed very much surprised, and said, he was
sure I was not a foreigner. I made no reply, but left him upon the
tenter-hooks of impatient uncertainty. He could not contain his anxiety,
but asked pardon for the liberties he had taken and, to encourage me
the more to disclose my situation, displayed his own without reserve.
"I am," said he, "a single man, have a considerable annuity, on which
I live according to my inclination, and make the ends of the year meet
very comfortably. As I have no estate to leave behind, I am not troubled
with the importunate officiousness of relations or legacy hunters, and I
consider the world as made for me, not me for the world. It is my maxim,
therefore, to enjoy it while I can, and let futurity shift for itself."

While he thus indulged his own talkative vein, and at the same time,
no doubt, expected retaliation from me, a young man entered, dressed
in black velvet and an enormous tie-wig, with an air in which natural
levity and affected solemnity were so jumbled together, that on the
whole he appeared a burlesque on all decorum. This ridiculous oddity
danced up to the table at which we sat, and, after a thousand grimaces,
asked my friend by the name of Mr. Medlar, if we were not engaged upon
business. My companion put on a surly countenance, and replied "No great
business, doctor--but however--" "Oh! then," cried the physician; "I
must beg your indulgence a little; pray pardon me, gentlemen." "Sir,"
said he, addressing himself to me, "your most humble servant. I hope
you will forgive me, sir--I must beg the favour to sit--sir--sir--I have
something of consequence to impart to my friend Mr. Medlar--sir, I hope
you will excuse my freedom in whispering, sir," Before I had time to
give this complaisant person my permission, Mr. Medlar cried, "I'll have
no whispering--if you have anything to say to me, speak with an audible
voice." The doctor seemed a little disconcerted at this exclamation,
and, turning again to me, made a thousand apologies for pretending to
make a mystery of anything, a piece of caution