I said this wi' a degree o' irony which I was not then, and which I am not now, in the habit of exhibiting before my scholars; but, from what I had observed and heard o' him, it betrayed to me a trait in human nature that literally disgusted me. But I have no pleasure in dwelling upon his history. Shortly after leaving the school, he was sent up to London to an uncle; and, as his parents had the means o' setting him up in the world, he was there to make choice o' a profession. After looking about the great city for a time, it was the choice and pleasure o' Cautious Watty to be bound as an apprentice to a pawnbroker. He afterwards commenced business for himself, and every day in his life indulging in his favourite study, compound interest, and, as far as he durst, putting it in practice, he in a short time became rich. But, as his substance increased, he did not confine himself to portable articles, or such things as are usually taken in pledge by the members of his profession; but he took estates in pledge, receiving the title-deeds as his security; and in such cases he did exact his compound interest to the last farthing to which he could stretch it. He neither knew the meaning of generosity nor mercy. Shakspere's beautiful apostrophe to the latter god-like attribute in the "Merchant of Venice," would have been flat nonsense in the estimation of Watty. He had but one answer to every argument and to every case, and which he laid to his conscience in all his transactions (if he had a conscience), and that was--"A bargain's a bargain!" This was his ten times repeated phrase every day. It was the doctrine by which he swore; and Shylock would have died wi' envy to have seen Watty exacting his "_pound o' flesh_." I have only to tell ye that he has been twice married. The first time was to a widow four years older than his mother, wi' whom he got ten thousand. The second time was to a maiden lady, who had been a coquette and a flirt in her day, but who, when the deep crow-feet upon her brow began to reflect sermons from her looking-glass, became a patroniser of piety and religious institutions. Watty heard o' her fortune, and o' her disposition and habits. He turned an Episcopalian, because she was one. He became a sitter and a regular attender in the same pew in the church. He began his courtship by opening the pew-door to her when he saw her coming, before the sexton reached it. He next sought her out the services for the day in the prayer-book--he had it always open, and ready to put in her hand. He dusted the cushion on which she was to sit with his handkerchief, as she entered the pew. He, in short, showed her a hundred little pious attentions. The sensibility of the converted flirt was affected by them. At length he offered her his arm from the pew to the hackney-coach or sedan-chair which waited for her at the church-door; and, eventually, he led her to the altar in the seventy-third year of her age; when, to use his own words, he married