Jenny was very melancholy at his return, and giving him three guineas, told him that it was all the pawnbroker would lend, and she had much ado to get that, as she was not known.  Tim bid her be of good cheer, and said he hoped things would mend, and so they went to bed.  Two or three days after, he took an opportunity of going out pretty early, and returning about dinner time, told her, with much seeming joy, that he had met with a gentleman whom he had been acquainted with at Leyden, and who hearing of his father’s death, had begged him to accept of twenty guineas as a mark to his esteem.  Jenny was in raptures at their good fortune, and went that afternoon and fetched the ring home, returning, poor creature, with as much satisfaction as if she had received ever so much money; for the hopes of living quietly a month or two with the man she loved, dispelled all the apprehensions of poverty which she was before under.

Tim considering that this supply would not last always, and resolving with himself never to run such a hazard again, he began to beat his brains about the best method to be taken of getting money in an honest way.  As he had been bred to no profession, notwithstanding the excellent education he had had, never was a man more at his wits’ end.  After a thousand schemes had offered themselves to his mind, and were rejected, it came at last into his head that as he was tolerably versed in physic, it might not be impossible for him to get his bread by that.  But how to get into practice, there was the difficulty.  A little recollection helped him here.  He had seen a quack doctor exhibit his medicines, with a panegyric on their good qualities, on his journey to London; he resolved, scandalous as the profession was, to venture upon it, rather than run the risk he had done before.

This scheme doubtless cost him some trouble before he brought it to bear so as to give him any hopes of his putting it into execution, but having at last settled it as well as he could, he determined with himself to go down into some distant county and undertake it.  In order to have his thoughts at greater liberty to resolve about it, he took a walk into the fields, and being very dry after his perambulation, he stepped into a little alehouse, and called for a mug of drink.  While he sat there he heard two men discoursing upon the vast sums of money that was got by one Smith, a practitioner in the very art which he was going to set up, and he found by them that the chief scene of Smith’s adventures had lain in Lincolnshire and thereabouts; so without more ado, as all places were alike to him, he settled his intentions to go down to the same place, where he understood by the man that his quondam doctor had done some great cures and got a tolerable reputation.