please your honour,' answered Duncan MacAlpine;
'let ilka ane please her nain sell'--hauling up a screed half a yard
lang. 'Ilka man to his taste, please your honour, Lovetenant Todrick.'"

"'Od, man," said I to him, "'Od, man, ye're a deacon at telling a story.
Ye're a queer hand. Weel, what came next?"

"What think ye should come next?" quo' Thomas drily.

"I'm sure I dinna ken," answered I.

"Weel," said he, "I'll tell--but where was I at?"

"Ou, at the observe of Lovetenant Todrick, or what they caa'd him, about
the tripe; and the answer of Duncan MacAlpine on that head, 'That ilka
man has his ain taste.'"

"'Vera true,' said Lovetenant Todrick, 'but lift it out a' the-gither on
that dish, till I get my specs on; for never since I was born, did I ever
see before boiled tripe with buttons and button-holes intill't.'"

At this I set up a loud laughing, which I could not help, though it was
like to split my sides; but Thomas Burlings bade me whisht till I heard
him out.

"'Buttons and button-holes!' quo' Duncan MacAlpine. 'Look again, wi' yer
specs; for ye're surely wrang, Lovetenant Todrick.'"

"'Buttons and button-holes! and 'deed I am surely right, Duncan,'
answered the Lovetenant Todrick, taking his specs deliberately off the
brig o' his nose, and faulding them thegither, as he put them first into
his shagreen case, and syne into his pocket--'Howsomever, Duncan
MacAlpine, I'll pass ye ower for this time, gif ye take my warning, and
for the future ware your pay-money on wholesome butcher's meat, like a
Christian, and no be trying to delude your ain stamick, and your
offisher's een, by holding up, on a fork, such a heathenish mak-up for a
dish, as the leg of a pair o' buckskin breeches!'"

"Buckskin breeches!" said I, "and did he really and actually boil siccan
trash to his dinner?"

"Nae sae far south as that yet, friend," answered Thomas. "Duncan was
not so bowed in the intellect as ye imagine, and had some spice of
cleverality about his queer manoeuvres.--Eat siccan trash to his dinner!
Nae mair, Mansie, than ye intend to eat that iron guse ye're rinning
along that piece claith; but he wanted to make his offishers believe that
his pay gaed the right way: like the Pharisees of old that keepit
praying, in ell-lang faces, about the corners of the streets, and gaed
hame wi' hearts full of wickedness and a' manner of cheatrie."

"And what way did his pay gang, then?" asked I; "and how did he live?"