As an eident scholar he had his reward; for customers, especially during the latter years, when my sight was scarcely so good, came at length to be not very scrupulous as to whether their cloth was cut by the man or his master.

Never let filial piety be overlooked:--when I first patronized Tammie, and promoted him to the dignity of sitting crosslegged along with me on the working- board, he was a hatless and shoeless ragamuffin, the orphan lad of a widowed mother, whose husband had been killed by a chain-shot, which carried off his head, at the bloody battle of the Nile, under Lord Nelson.

Tammie was the oldest of four, and the other three were lasses, that knew not in the morning where the day's providing was to come from, except by trust in Him who sent the ravens to Elijah.

By allowing Tammie a trifle for board-wages, I was enabled to add my mite to the comforts of the family; for he was kind, frugal, and dutiful, and would willingly share with them to the last morsel.

In the course of a few years he became his mother's bread-winner, the lasses being sent to service--I myself having recommended one of them to Deacon Burlings, and another to Springheel the dancing-master; retaining Katie, the youngest, for ourselves, to manage the kitchen, and go messages when required.
Providence having thus blessed Tammie's efforts in the paths of industrious sobriety, what could I do better--James Batter being exactly of the same opinion--than make him my successor; giving him the shop at a cheap rent, the stock in trade at a moderate valuation, and the good-will of the business as a gratis gift.
Having recommended Tammie to public patronage and support, he is now, as all the world knows, a thriving man; nor, from Berwick Bridge to Johnny Groat's, is it in the power of any gentleman to have his coat cut in a more fashionable way, or on more moderate terms, than at the sign of the Goose and the Pair of Shears rampant.
Leaving Tammie to take care of his own matters, as he is well able to do, allow me to observe, that it is curious how habit becomes a second nature, and how the breaking in upon the ways we have been long and long accustomed to, through the days of the years that are past, is as the cutting asunder of the joints and marrow.