The first thing done at the tavern, was Mr. Campbell's saluting him upon a piece of paper by his name, and drinking his health. The next paper held a discourse of condolence for a disaster that was past long since; namely, a great and considerable loss that happened to his family, in the dreadful conflagration of the city of London. In the third little dialogue which they had together, he told the merchant that losses and advantages were general topics, which a person unskilled in that art might venture to assign to any man of his profession; it being next to impossible that persons who traffic should not sometimes gain, and sometimes lose. But, said Mr. Duncan Campbell, I will sketch out particularly, and specify to you some future misfortunes with which you will unavoidably meet; it is in your stars, it is in destiny, that you should have some trials, and therefore when you are forewarned, take a prudent care to be forearmed with patience, and by longanimity, and meekly and resignedly enduring your lot, render it more easy, since impatience can't avert it, and will only render it more burdensome and heavy. He gave these words to the merchant; who pressed for his opinion that moment. By your leave, resuming the pen, said the dumb gentleman, in writing, we will have this bottle out first and tap a fresh one, that you may be warmed with courage enough to receive the first speculative onset of ill fortune, that I shall predict to you, with a good grace, and that may perhaps enable you to meet it when it comes to reduce itself into action, with a manful purpose and all becoming resolution. The merchant agreed to the proposal, and put on an air of the careless and indifferent as well as he could, to signify that he had no need to raise up an artificial courage from the auxiliary forces of the grape. But nature, when hard pressed, will break through all disguises, and not only notwithstanding the air of pleasantry he gave himself, which appeared forced and constrained, but in spite of two or three sparkling and enlivening bumpers, a cloud of care would ever and anon gather and shoot heavily across his brow, though he laboured all he could to dispel it as quickly, and to keep fair weather in his countenance. Well, they had cracked the first bottle, and the second succeeded upon the table, and they called to blow a pipe together. This pipe Mr. Campbell found had a very ill effect; it is certainly a pensive kind of instrument, and fills a mind, anything so disposed, with disturbing thoughts, black fumes, and melancholy vapours, as certainly as it doth the mouth with smoke. It plainly took away even the little sparks of vivacity which the wine had given before; so he wrote for a truce of firing those sort of noxious guns any longer, and they laid down their arms by consent, and drank off the second bottle. A third immediately supplied its place, and at the first glass, the opening of the bottle, Mr. Campbell began to