invincible reprobate, so ashamed was he of his
infamous conduct, that he did not dare, for the life in his body, to show
himself before my shop-window--far less in my presence--for more than a
week; yet, would ye believe it! he made a perfect farce of the whole
business among his own wauf cronies; and, instead of repentance, I verily
believe, would not have cared twopence to have played me the same pliskie
that he did my douce and worthy friend. But away with him! he is not
worth speaking about; and ye'll get nothing from a sow but--grumph!

Being betimes on mending order, James sent down, one forenoon, to
request, with his compliments, that I would hand him up by the bearer old
Taffy with the Pigtail's bundle of old papers,--as having more leisure in
his hands than either he liked, or well knew how to dispose of, it might
afford him some diversion to take a reading of them, for the purpose of
enquiring farther into the particulars of the Welsh gentleman's
history--which undoubtedly was a wee mysterious; consisting of matters
lying heads and thraws; and of odds and ends, that no human skill could
dovetail into a Christian consistency.

On the night of the next day--I mind it weel, for it was on that dividual
evening that Willie, the minister's man, married Mysie Clouts, the keeper
of the lodging-house called the Beggars' Opera--it struck me, seeing the
general joy of the weans on the street, and the laughing, daffing, and
hallabuloo that they were making, that poor James must be lonely at his
ingle side, and that a drink of porter and a crack would do his old heart
good. Accordingly, I made Nanse send the bit lassie, our servant, Jenny
Heggins, for a couple of bottles of Deacon Jaffrey's best brown stout,
asking if he could pawn his word anent its being genuine, as it was for a
gentleman in delicate health. So, brushing the saw-dust off the doup of
one of them, and slipping it into my coat pocket, which was gey an'
large, I popped at leisure up the close to pay my neighbour a friendly
visit.

[Picture: Peter Farrel]

'Od, but comfort is a grand thing. If ever ye saw an ancient patriarch,
there was one. James was seated in his snug old easychair by the
fireside, as if he had been an Edinburgh Parliament House lawyer,
studying his hornings, duplies, and fugie warrants, with his left leg
paraded out on a stool, with a pillow smoothed down over it, and all the
Welshman's papers docketed on t