Once again on this side of the water, his notions of gentility returned; he scorned being a menial servant; and valuing the _minimum_ of his ambition at a pair of colors, he actually had the impudence to attempt to borrow the purchase money on the bond he had obtained from his master. This absurd scheme failing, he threw up his shilling a day in disgust, and heroically cast himself for support on a celebrated courtesan, a countrywoman of his own, who maintained him for some months in great magnificence, and enabled him to attend the public places with something like splendor. But having disgusted this lady by his pusillanimous conduct in a rencontre with a certain peer,--who bestowed upon him a severe castigation, and very nearly ran him through the body, though he was much stronger, and as well armed as the nobleman,--he was once more without resources. His grandeur now suffered an eclipse for two or three months, and his last suit had been laid by in lavender, or, in other words, pawned, when he inspired the regard of a lady of quality, the consequence of which was that for five or six months longer he flourished away as an idle fellow in all the public places. But Maclaine inwardly was not idle. He was extremely anxious for an independent settlement, and the thought of inveigling some woman of fortune by the charms of his person was still uppermost in his mind. Among other schemes to this end, there was none he built so much upon as a very hopeful and grateful plot he had laid for the daughter of his patroness and benefactress, who had a considerable fortune. But the young lady’s waiting-maid, who had either more honesty than abigails in general are furnished with, or had not received the price with which they are usually rewarded, discovered the affair to the old lady, who forthwith dismissed Maclaine from her service: but when, in a few months after, he was much reduced, she privately bestowed upon him fifty pounds in order to fit him out for Jamaica, where he had proposed to go and seek his fortune, and where the lady was willing enough that he should retire, that she might be free from fears on her daughter’s account. But Maclaine was no sooner possessed of this sum than he forgot his Jamaica expedition, and returned to his favorite scheme of fortune-hunting; for he never could rid himself of the idea that one day or other he should succeed in the main object of his existence. He released, therefore, his best clothes from the durance vile in which they had been plunged, and after various treaties with match-makers and chambermaids, relating to ladies of great reputed fortune, all which treaties ended in disappointment, he reluctantly contracted his ambition, and made suit to the daughter of a considerable innkeeper and dealer in horses, with whom he was fortunate enough to succeed, and whom he married with her parents’ consent and five hundred pounds.