'Famous glories, by dad!' cried Jerry; 'but as I am a poor man, and not particular, I can contrive to make shift with health and happiness, and to rub through life without binding my hair.—Bind it? by the powers, 'tis seldom I even comb it.'
As I was all this time without my bonnet (for in my hurry from Betterton's I had left it behind me), I determined to purchase one. So I went into a shop, with Jerry, and asked the woman of it for an interesting and melancholy turn of bonnet.
She looked at me with some surprise, but produced several; and I fixed on one which resembled a bonnet that I had once seen in a picture of a wood nymph. So I put it on me, wished the woman good morning, and was walking away.
'You have forgotten to pay me, Miss,' said she.
'True,' replied I, 'but 'tis no great matter. Adieu.'
'You shall pay me, however,' cried she, ringing a bell, and a man entered instantly from an inner room.
'Here is a hussey,' exclaimed she, 'who refuses to pay me for a bonnet.'
'My sweet friend,' said I to her, 'a distressed heroine, which I am, I assure you, runs in debt every where. Besides, as I like your face, I mean to implicate you in my plot, and make you one of the dramatis personæ in the history of my life. Probably you will turn out to be my mother's nurse's daughter. At all events, I give you my word, I will pay you at the denouement, when the other characters come to be provided for; and meantime, to secure your acquaintance, I must insist on owing you money.'
'By dad,' said Jerry, 'that is the first of all ways to lose an acquaintance.'
'The bonnet or the money!' cried the man, stepping between me and the door.