man said that he supposed it was one Second's Hotel, or Coffee-
house, that we wanted. Now, only think of the craftiness of the
ne'er-da-weel; it was with some difficulty that I could get him to
understand, that second was just as good as number two; for Andrew
Pringle, my son, would not interfere, but lay back in the coach, and
was like to split his sides at my confabulating with the hackney
man. At long and length we got to the house, and were admitted to
Mr. Argent, who was sitting by himself in his library reading, with
a plate of oranges, and two decanters with wine before him. I
explained to him, as well as I could, my surprise and anxiety at
seeing his card, at which he smiled, and said, it was merely a sort
of practice that had come into fashion of late years, and that,
although we had been at his counting-house in the morning, he
considered it requisite that he should call on his return from the
city. I made the best excuse I could for the mistake; and the
servant having placed glasses on the table, we were invited to take
wine. But I was grieved to think that so respectable a man should
have had the bottles before him by himself, the more especially as
he said his wife and daughters had gone to a party, and that he did
not much like such sort of things. But for all that, we found him a
wonderful conversible man; and Andrew Pringle, my son, having read
all the new books put out at Edinburgh, could speak with him on any
subject. In the course of conversation they touched upon politick
economy, and Andrew Pringle, my son, in speaking about cash in the
Bank of England, told him what I had said concerning the alterations
of the Royal Exchange steeple, with which Mr. Argent seemed greatly
pleased, and jocosely proposed as a toast,--"May the country never
suffer more from the alterations in the Exchange, than the taking
down of the steeple." But as Mrs. Pringle is wanting to send a bit
line under the same frank to her cousin, Miss Mally Glencairn, I