I saw what I was about, so went on without pretending to mind her. "Or what say ye to a penny-pie-man? I'fegs, it's a cozy birth, and ane that gars the cappers birl down. What's the expense of a bit daigh, half an ounce weight, pirled round wi' the knuckles into a case, and filled half full o' salt and water, wi' twa or three nips o' braxy floating about in't? Just naething ava;--and consider on a winter night, when iceshockles are hinging from the tiles, and stomachs relish what is warm and tasty, what a sale they can get, if they go about jingling their little bell, and keep the genuine article! Then ye ken in the afternoon, he can show that he has two strings to his bow; and have a wheen cookies, either new baked for ladies' tea-parties, or the yesterday's auld shopkeepers' het up i' the oven again--which is all to ae purpose." "Are ye really in your seven natural senses--or can I believe my ain een? I could almost believe some warlock had thrown glamour into them," said Nanse staring me broad in the face. "Take a good look, gudewife, for seeing's believing," quo' I; and then continued, without drawing breath or bridle, at full birr-- "Or if the baking line does not please ye, what say ye to binding him regularly to a man-cook? There he'll see life in all its variorums. Losh keep us a', what an insight into the secrets of roasting, brandering, frying, boiling, baking, and brewing--nicking of geese's craigs--hacking the necks of dead chickens, and cutting out the tongues of leeving turkeys! Then what a steaming o' fat soup in the nostrils; and siccan a collection o' fine smells, as would persuade a man that he could fill his stomach through his nose! No weather can reach such cattle: it may be a storm of snow twenty feet deep, or an even-down pour of rain, washing the very cats off the house tops; when a weaver is shivering at his loom, with not a drop of blood at his finger nails, and a tailor like myself, so numb with cauld, that instead of driving the needle through the claith, he brogs it through his ain thumb--then, fient a hair care they; but, standing beside a ranting, roaring, parrot-coal fire, in a white apron and a gingham jacket, they pour sauce out of ae pan into another, to suit the taste of my Lord this, and my Lady that, turning, by their legerdemain, fish into fowl, and fowl into flesh; till, in the long run, man, woman, and wean, a' chew and champ away, without kenning more what they are eating than ye ken the day ye'll dee, or whether the Witch of Endor wore a demity falderal, or a manco petticoat." "Weel," cried Nanse, half rising to go ben the house, "I'll sit nae langer to hear ye gabbling nonsense like a magpie. Mak' Benjie what ye like; but ye'll mak' me greet the een out o' my head." "Hooly and fairly," said I; "Nanse, sit still like a woman, and hear me out;" so, giving her a pat on the shouther, she sat her ways down, and I resumed my discourse.