_I_ go to a tavern in Market-street? The idea was offensive; and ride thither, and afterward, my three country kinsfolk with me, to Head's, in a hackney-coach! The Market-street tavern and the hackney-coach finished my uncle Wilkins. I suddenly recollected a highly important engagement, which would deprive me of the pleasure of going round with my excellent uncle that moment, to make the acquaintance of my worthy cousins; nay, I feared it would occupy me all that evening, being an engagement of a very peculiar nature. I would see them the next day, when they were safely lodged at Head's, whither I recommended Mr. Wilkins to proceed, bag and baggage, instanter. My uncle accepted my excuses, and agreed to follow my advice, with a ready docility that might have pleased me, seeing that it showed the respect in which he held me; but I perceived in it nothing more than a willingness to be put into leading-strings, arising from his consciousness of inferiority. I got rid of him, and resolved I would consider the pros and cons before compromising my reputation by any public acknowledgment of relationship. Then, being vastly tired by the varied business of the day, I threw myself on my bed, where I slept during the remainder of the day very soundly and agreeably. CHAPTER XI. CONTAINING A MORSEL OF METAPHYSICS, WITH A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR'S EXPERIENCE IN GOOD SOCIETY. I was roused about nine o'clock in the evening by Tickle, who came, according to promise, to squire me to Mrs. Pickup's and the Misses Oldstyle's; and dressing myself in Mr. Dawkin's best, I accompanied him forthwith to the mansion of the former. It was yet summer, and the season of gayety was therefore afar off. All genteel people were, or were supposed to be, out of town, according to the rule which, at this season, drives the gentry of London to their country-seats. The few of Philadelphia who could imitate the lords and ladies in this particular, were now catching agues on the Schuylkill; while the mass, consisting of those whose revenues did not allow any rustication on their own lands, were killing sand-flies on the seashore, or gnawing tough beef and grumbling over bad butter at some fashionable watering-place in the interior. There were some, however, as there always are, who considered themselves genteel, and who stayed at home, either because they were tired of agues, sand-flies, tough beef, and bad butter, as they freely professed; because they really believed they were better off at home; or because they were, like me and my friend Tickle, not rich enough to squander their money on vanities, and so stayed at home from necessity. Of such persons one can always, even in summer-time, assemble enough to make a party of some kind or other, where the contented guests can be uncommonly sociable, eat ices, and pity their friends, who may be at the moment roasting in a ball-room at Saratoga.