e from the two canisters that stood on his counter,
and I was in a manner doing nothing but looking at the number of
counterfeit sixpences and shillings that were nailed thereon as an
admonishment to his customers, he said to me, "So, provost, we're to hae
a new lining to the kirk. I wonder, when ye were at it, that ye didna
rather think of bigging another frae the fundament, for I'm thinking the
walls are no o' a capacity of strength to outlast this seating."

Knowing, as I did, the tough temper of the body, I can attribute my
entering into an argument with him on the subject to nothing but some
inconsiderate infatuation; for when I said heedlessly, the walls are very
good, he threw the brass snuff-spoon with an ecstasy in to one of the
canisters, and lifting his two hands into a posture of admiration,--cried,
as if he had seen an unco--

"Good! surely, provost, ye hae na had an inspection; they're crackit in
divers places; they're shotten out wi' infirmity in others. In short,
the whole kirk, frae the coping to the fundament, is a fabric smitten wi'
a paralytic."

"It's very extraordinar, Mr Smeddum," was my reply, "that nobody has seen
a' this but yoursel'."

"Na, if ye will deny the fact, provost," quo' he, "it's o' no service for
me to say a word; but there has to a moral certainty been a slackness
somewhere, or how has it happened that the wa's were na subjected to a
right inspection before this job o' the seating?"

By this time, I had seen the great error into the which I had fallen, by
entering on a confabulation with Mr Smeddum; so I said to him, "It' no a
matter for you and me to dispute about, so I'll thank you to fill my
box;" the which manner of putting an end to the debate he took very ill;
and after I left the shop, he laid the marrow of our discourse open to Mr
Threeper the writer, who by chance went in, like mysel', to get a supply
of rappee for the Sabbath. That limb of the law discerning a sediment of
litigation in the case, eggit on Mr Smeddum into a persuasion that the
seating of the kirk was a thing which the magistrates had no legal
authority to undertake. At this critical moment, my ancient adversary
and seeming friend, the dean of guild, happened to pass the door, and the
bickering snuff-man seeing him, cried to him to come in. It was a very
unfortunate occurrence; for Mr M'Lucre having a secret interest, as I
have intimated, in the Whinstone quarry, when he heard of taking down
walls