Now is the time, thought I to myself, to carry out my point, finding the drappikie I had taken with Donald M'Naughton, in settling his account for the green jacket, still working in my noddle, and giving me a power of words equal to Mr Blouster, the Cameronian preacher,--now is the time, for I still saw the unleavened pride of womankind wambling within her like a serpent that has got a knock on the pow, and been cast down but not destroyed; so taking a hearty snuff out of my box, and drawing it up first one nostril, then another, syne dighting my finger and thumb on my breek-knees, "What think ye," said I, "of a sweep? Were it not for getting their faces blacked like savages, a sweep is not such a bad trade after a'; though, to be sure, going down lums six stories high, head-foremost, and landing upon the soles of their feet upon the hearth-stone, like a kittlin, is no just so pleasant." Ye observe, it was only to throw cold wayter on the unthrifty flame of a mother's pride that I said this, and to pull down uppishness from its heathenish temple in the heart, head-foremost. So I looked to her, to hear how she would come on. "Haivers, haivers," said Nanse, birsing up like a cat before a cooley. "Sweep, say ye? I would sooner send him up wi' Lunardi to the man of the moon; or see him banished, shackled neck and heels, to Botany Bay." "A weel, a weel," answered I, "what notion have ye of the packman line? We could fill his box with needles, and prins, and tape, and hanks of worsted, and penny thimbles, at a small expense; and, putting a stick in his hand, send him abroad into the wide world to push his fortune." The wife looked dumfoundered. Howsoever--"Or breed him a rowley-powley man," continued I, "to trail about the country frequenting fairs; and dozing thro' the streets selling penny cakes to weans, out of a basket slung round the neck with a leather strap; and parliaments, and quality, brown and white, and snaps well peppered, and gingerbread nits, and so on. The trade is no a bad ane, if creatures would only learn to be careful." "Mansie Wauch, Mansie Wauch, hae ye gane out o' yere wuts?" cried Nanse--"are ye really serious?"