And then they go from house to house, like gentlemen in the morning; cracking with Maister this or Madam that, as they soap their chins with scented-soap, or put their hair up in marching order either for kirk or playhouse.

Then at their leisure, when they're not thraug at home, they can pare corns to the gentry, or give ploughmen's heads the bicker-cut for a penny, and the hair into the bargain for stuffing chairs with; and between us, who knows--many rottener ship has come to land--but that some genty Miss, fond of plays, poems, and novels, may fancy our Benjie when he is giving her red hair a twist with the torturing irons, and run away with him, almost whether he will or not, in a stound of unbearable love!" Here making an end of my discourse, and halting to draw breath, I looked Nanse broad in the face, as much as to say, "Contradict me if ye daur," and, "What think ye of that now ?"--The man is not worth his lugs, that allows his wife to be maister; and being by all laws, divine and human, the head of the house, I aye made a rule of keeping my putt good.

To be candid, howsoever, I must take leave to confess, that Nanse, being a reasonable woman, gave me but few opportunities of exerting my authority in this way.

As in other matters, she soon came, on reflection, to see the propriety of what I had been saying and setting forth.

Besides, she had such a motherly affection towards our bit callant, that sending him abroad would have been the death of her.
To be sure, since these days--which, alas, and woe's me! are not yesterday now, as my grey hair and wrinkled brow but too visibly remind me--such ups and downs have taken place in the commercial world, that the barber line has been clipped of its profits and shaved close, from a patriotic competition among its members, like all the rest.