_Eger_. O! doubtless--doubtless, sir.

_Sir Per_. Now, sir, where do you think I ganged to look for this woman
with the siller?--nai till court, nai till playhouses or assemblies--nai,
sir. I ganged till the kirk, till the anabaptist, independent, bradlonian,
and muggletonian meetings; till the morning and evening service of
churches and chapels of ease, and till the midnight, melting, conciliating
love-feasts of the methodists; and there, sir, at last, I fell upon an
old, slighted, antiquated, musty maiden, that looked--ha, ha, ha! she
looked just like a skeleton in a surgeon's glass case. Now, sir, this
miserable object was religiously angry with herself and aw the world; had
nai comfort but in metaphysical visions, and supernatural deliriums; ha,
ha, ha! Sir, she was as mad--as mad as a Bedlamite.

_Eger_. Not improbable, sir, there are numbers of poor creatures in the
same condition.

_Sir Per_. O! numbers--numbers. Now, sir, this cracked creature used to
pray, and sing, and sigh, and groan, and weep, and wail, and gnash her
teeth constantly, morning and evening, at the Tabernacle in Moorfields:
and as soon as I found she had the siller, aha! guid traith, I plumpt me
down upon my knees, close by her--cheek by jowl--and prayed, and sighed,
and sung, and groaned, and gnashed my teeth as vehemently as she could do
for the life of her; ay, and turned up the whites of mine een, till the
strings awmost crackt again:--I watcht her motions, handed her till her
chair, waited on her home, got most religiously intimate with her in a
week,--married her in a fortnight, buried her in a month;--touched the
siller, and with a deep suit of mourning, a melancholy port, a sorrowful
visage, and a joyful heart, I began the world again;--and this, sir, was
the first bow, that is, the first effectual bow, I ever made till the