y Bodkin, out of his bed;
but no--I thought he would have jumped out of his seven senses. "Just
look," he said, turning up the inside seam of the leg--"just see--can any
gentleman make a visit in such things as these? they are as full of holes
as a coal-sieve. I wonder the devil why my baggage has not come forward.
Can I get a horse and boy to ride express to Edinburgh for a ready-made
article?"

[Picture: Mansie's father]

A thought struck me; for I had heard of wonderful advancement in the
world, for those who had been so lucky as help the great at a pinch. "If
ye'll no take it amiss, sir," said I, making my obedience, "a notion has
just struck me."

"Well, what is it?" said he briskly.

"Well, sir, I have a pair of knee-breeches, of most famous velveteen,
double tweel, which have been only once on my legs, and that no farther
gone than last Sabbath. I'm pretty sure they would fit ye in the
meantime; and I would just take a pleasure in driving the needle all
night, to get your own ready."

"A clever thought," said the Englisher. "Do you think they would fit
me?--Devilish clever thought, indeed."

"To a hair," I answered; and cried to Nanse to bring the velveteens.

I do not think he was ten minutes, when lo, and behold! out at the door
he went, and away past the shop-window like a lamplighter. The buttons
on the velveteens were glittering like gold at the knees. Alas! it was
like the flash of the setting sun; I never beheld them more. He was to
have been back in two or three hours, but the laddie, with the box on his
shoulder, was going through the street crying "Hot penny-pies" for
supper, and neither word nor wittens of him. I began to be a thought
uneasy, and fidgeted on the board like a hen on a hot girdle. No man
should do anything when he is vexed, but I could not help giving Tammy
Bodkin, who was sewing away at the lining of the new pantaloons, a
terrible whisk in the lug for singing to himself. I say I was vexed for
it afterwards; especially as the laddie did not mean to give offence; and
as I saw the blae marks of my four fingers along his chaft-blade.

The wife had been bothering me for a new gown, on strength of the payment
of our grand bill; and in came she, at this blessed moment of time, with
about twenty swatches from Simeon Calicoe's pinned on a screed of paper.

"Which of these do you think bonniest?" said Nanse, in a flattering way;
"I ken, Mansie, you hav