was sure of
that, and that is the main point.--Come, sir, I wait upon you."

"Will you not first change your dress?" said the visitor, seeing with
astonishment that the divine proposed to attend him in his plaid
nightgown; "why, we shall have all the boys in the village after us--you
will look like an owl in sunshine, and they will flock round you like so
many hedge-sparrows."

"I will get my clothes instantly," said the worthy clergyman; "I will
get ready directly--I am really ashamed to keep you waiting, my dear
Mr.--eh--eh--your name has this instant escaped me."

"It is Touchwood, sir, at your service; I do not believe you ever heard
it before," answered the traveller.

"True--right--no more I have--well, my good Mr. Touchstone, will you sit
down an instant until we see what we can do?--strange slaves we make
ourselves to these bodies of ours, Mr. Touchstone--the clothing and the
sustaining of them costs us much thought and leisure, which might be
better employed in catering for the wants of our immortal spirits."

Mr. Touchwood thought in his heart that never had Bramin or Gymnosophist
less reason to reproach himself with excess in the indulgence of the
table, or of the toilet, than the sage before him; but he assented to
the doctrine, as he would have done to any minor heresy, rather than
protract matters by farther discussing the point at present. In a short
time the minister was dressed in his Sunday's suit, without any farther
mistake than turning one of his black stockings inside out; and Mr.
Touchwood, happy as was Boswell when he carried off Dr. Johnson in
triumph to dine with Strahan and John Wilkes, had the pleasure of
escorting him to the Cleikum Inn.

In the course of the afternoon they became more familiar, and the
familiarity led to their forming a considerable estimate of each other's
powers and acquirements. It is true, the traveller thought the student
too pedantic, too much attached to systems, which, formed in solitude,
he was unwilling to renounce, even when contradicted by the voice and
testimony of experience; and, moreover, considered his utter inattention
to the quality of what he eat and drank, as unworthy of a rational, that
is, of a cooking creature, or of a being who, as defined by Johnson,
holds his dinner as the most important business of the day. Cargill did
not act up to this definition, and was, therefore, in the eyes of his
new acquaintance, so far ignorant and uncivilized. Wh