‘Exactly. And what could be more economically contrived? One thing answering two ends--ends so very distinct.’ ‘Very distinct, indeed.’ ‘Ah! that is your way. Making sport of earnest. But never mind. We have been talking of snow; but common rain-water--such as falls all the year round--is still more kindly. Not to speak of its known fertilising quality as to fields, consider it in one of its minor lights. Pray, did you ever hear of a “Poor Man’s Egg”?’ ‘Never. What is that, now?’ ‘Why, in making some culinary preparations of meal and flour, where eggs are recommended in the receipt-book, a substitute for the eggs may be had in a cup of cold rain-water, which acts as leaven. And so a cup of cold rain-water thus used is called by housewives a “Poor Man’s Egg.” And many rich men’s housekeepers sometimes use it.’ ‘But only when they are out of hen’s eggs, I presume, dear Blandmour. But your talk is--I sincerely say it--most agreeable to me. Talk on.’ ‘Then there’s “Poor Man’s Plaster” for wounds and other bodily harms; an alleviative and curative, compounded of simple, natural things; and so, being very cheap, is accessible to the poorest of sufferers. Rich men often use “Poor Man’s Plaster.”’ ‘But not without the judicious advice of a fee’d physician, dear Blandmour.’ ‘Doubtless, they first consult the physician; but that may be an unnecessary precaution.’ ‘Perhaps so. I do not gainsay it. Go on.’ ‘Well, then, did you ever eat of a “Poor Man’s Pudding”?’ ‘I never so much as heard of it before.’ ‘Indeed! Well, now you shall eat of one; and you shall eat it, too, as made, unprompted, by a poor man’s wife, and you shall eat it at a poor man’s table, and in a poor man’s house. Come now, and if after this eating, you do not say that a “Poor Man’s Pudding” is as relishable as a rich man’s, I will give up the point altogether; which briefly is: that, through kind Nature, the poor, out of their very poverty, extract comfort.’ Not to narrate any more of our conversations upon this subject (for we had several--I being at that time the guest of Blandmour in the country, for the benefit of my health), suffice it that, acting upon Blandmour’s hint, I introduced myself into Coulter’s house on a wet Monday noon (for the snow had thawed), under the innocent pretence of craving a pedestrian’s rest and refreshment for an hour or two.