ntioned the number of our stock--to wit, a cock and
seven hens, eight in all; but I neglected, on account of their size, or
somehow overlooked, the two bantams, than which two more neat or
curiouser-looking creatures were not to be seen in the whole
country-side. The hennie was quite a conceit of a thing, and laid an egg
not muckle bigger than my thimble; while, for its size, the bit he-ane
was, for spirit in the fechting line, a perfect wee deevil incarnate.

Most fortunately for my family in this matter, it so happened that, by
paying in half-a-crown a-year, I was a regular member of a society for
prosecuting all whom it might concern, that dabbled with foul fingers in
the sinful and lawless trade of thievery, breaking the eighth commandment
at no allowance, and drawing on their heads not only the passing
punishments of this world, by way of banishment to Botany Bay, or hanging
at the Luckenbooths, but the threatened vengeance of one that will last
for ever and ever.

Accordingly, putting on my hat about nine o'clock, or thereabouts, when
the breakfast things were removing from the bit table, I poppit out, in
the first and foremost instance, to take a vizzy of the depredation the
flames had made in our neighbourhood. Losh keep us all, what a spectacle
of wreck and ruination! The roof was clean off and away, as if a
thunderbolt from heaven had knocked it down through the two floors,
carrying every thing before it like a perfect whirlwind. Nought were
standing but black, bare walls, a perfect picture of desolation; some
with the bit pictures on nails still hanging up where the rooms were
like; and others with old coats hanging on pins; and empty bottles in
boles, and so on. Indeed, Jacob Glowr, who was standing by my side with
his specs on, could see as plain as a pikestaff, a tea-kettle still on
the fire, in the hearth-place of one of the gable garrets, where Miss
Jenny Withershins lived, but happened luckily, at the era of the
conflagration, to be away to Prestonpans, on a visit to some of her
far-away cousins, providentially for her safety, greviously, at that very
time, smitten with the sciatics.

Having satisfied my eyes with a daylight view of the terrible
devastation, I went away leisurely up the street with my hands in my
breeches-pockets, comparing the scene in my mind with the downfall of
Babylon the Great, and Sodom and Gomorrah, and Tyre and Sidon, and
Jerusalem, and all the lave of the great towns th