"Indeed it would be next to blasphemy to doubt it. But, of late,
you have been very much addicted to intemperance. I doubt if,
from the first night you tasted the delights of drunkenness, that
you have ever again been in your right mind until Monday last.
Doubtless you have been for a good while most diligent in your
addresses to this lady's daughter."
"This is unaccountable," said I. "It is impossible that I can have
been doing a thing and not doing it at the same time. But indeed,
honest woman, there have several incidents occurred to me in the
course of my life which persuade me I have a second self; or that
there is some other being who appears in my likeness."
Here my friend interrupted me with a sneer, and a hint that I was
talking insanely; and then he added, turning to the lady: "I know
my friend Mr. Colwan will do what is just and, right. Go and
bring the young lady to him, that he may see her, and he will then
recollect all his former amours with her!'
"I humbly beg your pardon, sir," said I. "But the mention of such
a thing as amours with any woman existing, to me, is really so
absurd, so far from my principles, so from the purity of nature
and frame to which I was born and consecrated, that I hold it as
an insult, and regard it with contempt.
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