to get me a post in the government. But I soon saw,
that wi a' the phraseology that lay at his tongue end during the
election, about his power and will to serve us, his ain turn ser't, he
cared so little for me. Howsever after tarrying some time, and going to
him every day, at long and last he got me a tide-waiter's place at the
custom-house; a poor hungry situation, no worth the grassum at a new tack
of the warst land in the town's aught. But minnows are better than nae
fish, and a tide-waiter's place was a step towards a better, if I could
have waited. Luckily, however, for me, a flock of fleets and ships frae
the East and West Indies came in a' thegither; and there was sic a stress
for tide-waiters, that before I was sworn in and tested, I was sent down
to a grand ship in the Malabar trade frae China, loaded with tea and
other rich commodities; the captain whereof, a discreet man, took me down
to the cabin, and gave me a dram of wine, and, when we were by oursels,
he said to me--

"'Mr M'Lucre, what will you take to shut your eyes for an hour?'

"'I'll no take a hundred pounds,' was my answer.

"'I'll make it guineas,' quoth he.

"Surely, thought I, my eyne maun be worth pearls and diamonds to the East
India Company; so I answered and said--

"'Captain, no to argol-bargol about the matter,' (for a' the time, I
thought upon how I had not been sworn in;)--'what will ye gie me, if I
take away my eyne out of the vessel?'

"'A thousand pounds,' cried he.

"'A bargain be't,' said I. I think, however, had I stood out I might hae
got mair. But it doesna rain thousands of pounds every day; so, to make
a long tale short, I got a note of hand on the Bank of England for the
sum, and, packing up my ends and my awls, left the ship.

"It was my intent to have come immediately home to Scotland; but the same
afternoon, I was summoned by the Board at the Custom-house for deserting
my post; and the moment I went before them, they opened upon me like my
lord's pack of hounds, and said they would send me to Newgate. 'Cry a'
at ance,' quoth I; 'but I'll no gang.' I then told them how I was na
sworn, and under no obligation to serve or obey them mair than pleasured
mysel'; which set them a' again a barking worse than before; whereupon,
seeing no likelihood of an end to their stramash, I turned mysel' round,
and, taking the door on my back, left them, and the same night came off
on the Fly to Edinburgh. Since syne they have