I am
addressed by an underbred street-urchin as a "blooming blacky," and
cannot induce a policeman to compel my aggressor to furnish me with his
name and address or that of his parents, or even to offer the most
ordinary apology.

Enough of these rather bitter reflections, however. I omitted to mention
that I am also the proprietor (at the same pawnbroker's where I
bought my breeches-loader gun) of a very fine second-hand salmon-rod, a
great bargain and immense value, with which I hope to be able to catch a
great quantity of fishes.

For there is, according to young HOWARD, good fishing in a burn
adjoining the Manse, so I shall follow King Solomon's injunctions, and
not spare the rod and spoil the salmons, though if I should happen to
"spoil" my rod, the salmons would inevitably in consequence be "spared."

This is a sample of the kind of verbal pleasantries in which, when in
exhilarated high spirits, I sometimes facetiously indulge.

XXIV

_Mr Jabberjee relates his experiences upon the Moors._

I am now an acclimatised denizen of Caledonia stern and wild; which,
however, turns out to be milder and tamer than depicted by the jaundiced
hand of national jealousy.

For, since my arrival at this hamlet of Kilpaitrick, N.B., I have not
once beheld any species of savage hill-man; moreover, the adult
inhabitants are clothed with irreproachable decency, and, if the
juveniles run about with denuded feet and heads, where is the shocking
scandal?

Mr ALLBUTT-INNETT, sen., did me the honour to appear in person upon the
Kilpaitrick platform, and welcome me with outspread arms to his
temporary hearth and home, but I shall have the candour of confessing my
disappointment with the size and appearance of the same. It appears that
a "Manse" is not at all a palatial edifice, furnished with a plethora of
marble halls and vassals and serfs, &c., but simply the very so-so and
two-storied abode of some local priest!

My gracious hostess was to tender profuse apologies for its homeliness,
on the plea that it is refreshing at times to lay aside ceremonial
magnificence and unbend in rural simplicity, though it is not humanly
possible to unbend oneself upon the thorny bosoms of chairs and couches
severely upholstered with the prickling hairs of an extinct horse.

Still, as I assured Miss WEE-WEE, she is the happy owner of a magical
knack to transform, by her sheer apparition, the humblest hovel into the
first-class family res