1. Paterfamilias (addressing self)

"Why Jonathan, Jonathan, what are you about? This will never do! -- a great deal worse than last year, -- can't make my accounts balance at all! -- Oh, there was our month's jaunt to Margate [a coastal resort], and be damned to it! -- That accounts for it!"

2. Zomerzet rustic

"I cannot think what makes I have such a cruel dislike to Parsons -- they be generally very zevil [civil] charitable Jontlemen -- oh, I recollect -- my Mother long'd for zome Tithe Pig -- and the Vicar would not let her have any -- That accounts for it!"

3. Woman with pretensions to fashion, but a somewhat lower-class manner of speech, and a very frizzed-out wig (at a time when more and more people were discarding wigs, especially the young and fashionable)

"Nobody takes no notice of my Vig. I vas told I should be the admiration of all Bond Street. The fellows don't understand taste and elegance, that accounts for it."

4. Lawyer (in occupational wig)

"Not a single brief in the whole Circuit -- No Law stirring -- What can be the reason? Mankind grow wiser every day -- and that accounts for it."

5. Young and pretty widow (still in mourning)

"What makes me so low-spirited of late! -- I am continually thinking of my late Husband! I believe I want another! -- so that accounts for it."

6. Merchant trader

"Nothing going on at Change [i.e. the exchange], all dull and heavy -- to be sure, we have had no flams from the Continent lately -- so that accounts for it." [In this context, "flam" means something like "falsified news"]

7. Disheveled man

"What a number of fine women are here, and Hoax me if I saw but two when I came in. -- Egad, I believe I am drunk -- so that accounts for it." [An early version of the "beer goggles" theory]

8. Self-deluding stout woman

"I cannot conceive what makes the Men admire me so this morning -- oh, I have found it out, I sport my neat Ancle and new Sandals -- That accounts for it!"

9. Former minor con-man or medical nostrum-seller who has improved his fortunes to the point that he now owns his own carriage

"What a change in my affairs since the time I was a Mountebank. -- Carriage -- puffs -- and advertisements. -- More flats than sharps in the world. -- That accounts for it." [Puffs were panegyrics presented as part of newspaper stories, rather an as explicit advertisements; Flats were those who allow themselves to be deceived.]

10. Self-deluding stout Irishman

"How the dear craters [creatures, i.e. women] luck [look] at me. By St. Patrick, they put me to the blush. -- I suppose it is because I am so slim and jonteel -- and that accounts for it."

11. Scheming adventuress

"I thought we should have made a good thing of the Crim. Con. [adultery trial] business, & my husband and myself to have retired comfortably on the Damages [that the husband would have won by suing the man], but it would not do -- the Market is overstock'd, that accounts for it."

12. One-legged sailor

"Why I say, my hearty, we hear nothing of the French Navy now -- I suppose they got so cursedly lick'd last time, they didn't like it -- eh, my hearty -- aye That accounts for it."

For other Isaac Cruikshank caricatures with a similar overall structure, see Image:Ca-1795-militia-volunteers-drill-innuendo-caricature.jpg and Image:1799-Belvoir-Castle-houseparty-Isaac-Cruikshank.jpg .