As industry ever has its own reward, let me without brag or boasting be allowed to state, that, in my own case, it did not disappoint my exertions. I had sat down a tenant, and I was now not only the landlord of my own house and shop, but of all the back tenements to the head of the garden, as also of the row of one-story houses behind, facing to the loan, in the centre of which Lucky Thamson keeps up the sign of the Tankard and Tappit Hen. It was also a relief to my mind, as the head of my family, that we had cut Benjie loose from his mother's apron-string, poor fellow, and set him adrift in an honest way of doing to buffet the stormy ocean of life; so, every thing considered, it was found that enough and to spare had been laid past by Nanse and me to spend the evening of our days by the lound dykeside of domestic comfort. In Tammie Bodkin, to whom I trust I had been a dutiful, as I know I was an honoured master, I found a faithful journeyman, he having served me in that capacity for nine years; so, it is not miraculous, being constantly, during that period, under my attentive eye, that he was now quite a deacon in all the departments of the business. As an eident scholar he had his reward; for customers, especially during the latter years, when my sight was scarcely so good, came at length to be not very scrupulous as to whether their cloth was cut by the man or his master. Never let filial piety be overlooked:--when I first patronized Tammie, and promoted him to the dignity of sitting crosslegged along with me on the working- board, he was a hatless and shoeless ragamuffin, the orphan lad of a widowed mother, whose husband had been killed by a chain-shot, which carried off his head, at the bloody battle of the Nile, under Lord Nelson. Tammie was the oldest of four, and the other three were lasses, that knew not in the morning where the day's providing was to come from, except by trust in Him who sent the ravens to Elijah. By allowing Tammie a trifle for board-wages, I was enabled to add my mite to the comforts of the family; for he was kind, frugal, and dutiful, and would willingly share with them to the last morsel. In the course of a few years he became his mother's bread-winner, the lasses being sent to service--I myself having recommended one of them to Deacon Burlings, and another to Springheel the dancing-master; retaining Katie, the youngest, for ourselves, to manage the kitchen, and go messages when required. Providence having thus blessed Tammie's efforts in the paths of industrious sobriety, what could I do better--James Batter being exactly of the same opinion--than make him my successor; giving him the shop at a cheap rent, the stock in trade at a moderate valuation, and the good-will of the business as a gratis gift.