ed myself so prudently; for when the first number of the
paper made its appearance, it was as poor a job as ever was "open to all
parties, and influenced by none;" and it required but two eyes to discern
that there was no need of any strong power from the lord advocate to
suppress or abolish the undertaking; for there was neither birr nor
smeddum enough in it to molest the high or to pleasure the low; so being
left to itself, and not ennobled by any prosecution, as the schemers
expected, it became as foisonless as the "London Gazette" on ordinary
occasions. Those behind the curtain, who thought to bounce out with a
grand stot and strut before the world, finding that even I used it as a
convenient vehicle to advertise my houses when need was, and which I did
by the way of a canny seduction of policy, joking civilly with Mr Absolom
anent his paper trumpet, as I called it, they were utterly vanquished by
seeing themselves of so little account in the world, and forsook the
thing altogether; by which means it was gradually transformed into a very
solid and decent supporter of the government--Mr Absolom, for his pains,
being invited to all our public dinners, of which he gave a full account,
to the great satisfaction of all who were present, but more particularly
to those who were not, especially the wives and ladies of the town, to
whom it was a great pleasure to see the names of their kith and kin in
print. And indeed, to do Mr Absolom justice, he was certainly at great
pains to set off every thing to the best advantage, and usually put
speeches to some of our names which showed that, in the way of
grammaticals, he was even able to have mended some of the parliamentary
clishmaclavers, of which the Londoners, with all their skill in the
craft, are so seldom able to lick into any shape of common sense.

Thus, by a judicious forbearance in the first instance, and a canny
wising towards the undertaking in the second, did I, in the third, help
to convert this dangerous political adversary into a very respectable
instrument of governmental influence and efficacy.

CHAPTER XL--THE SCHOOL-HOUSE SCHEME

The spirit of opposition that kithed towards me in the affair of Robin
Boss, the drummer, was but an instance and symptom of the new nature then
growing up in public matters. I was not long done with my second
provostry, when I had occasion to congratulate myself on having passed
twice through the dignity with so much res