I rapidly improve – Am lectured for my dissipated habits by my Mother, and still more severely by Mr. Mason, whose eloquence experiences a very unfortunate interruption – My Mother advises me not to marry, and in consequence I begin to think of matrimony.

I flattered myself, that my appearance had been for some time past very genteel, but I soon got a hint that it was necessary for me to be more fashionably attired. This rather alarmed me, for I had never hoped to imitate Skim in dress, who seemed to my eyes, stylish beyond everybody else. But my uneasiness was dissipated by the lessons which he gave me, and I was speedily taught the art of cutting a figure at a small expense. My linen, he put on a most respectable footing, for being supplied, under his directions, with half a dozen collars made of fine linen, I put on a clean one every second day; and the wide spread black silk, or cambric cravat round my neck, was arranged, so as to display to great advantage a sham diamond pin, and to conceal the texture of the shirt beneath, which, to say the truth, was sometimes as coarse as a hop-sack.