"If I belong to Rome," said the man in black, "why should not you?"

"I may be a poor tinker," said I; "but I may never have undergone what
you have. You remember, perhaps, the fable of the fox who had lost his
tail?"

The man in black winced, but almost immediately recovering himself, he
said, "Well, we can do without you: we are sure of winning."

"It is not the part of wise people," said I, "to make sure of the battle
before it is fought: there's the landlord of the public-house, who made
sure that his cocks would win, yet the cocks lost the main, and the
landlord is little better than a bankrupt."

"People very different from the landlord," said the man in black, "both
in intellect and station, think we shall surely win; there are clever
machinators among us who have no doubt of our success."

"Well," said I, "I will set the landlord aside, and will adduce one who
was in every point a very different person from the landlord, both in
understanding and station; he was very fond of laying schemes, and,
indeed, many of them turned out successful. His last and darling one,
however, miscarried, notwithstanding that by his calculations he had
persuaded himself that there was no possibility of its failing--the
person that I allude to was old Fraser . . ."

"Who?" said the man in black, giving a start, and letting his glass fall.

"Old Fraser, of Lovat," said I, "the prince of all conspirators and
machinators; he made sure of placing the Pretender on the throne of these
realms. 'I can bring into the field so many men,' said he; 'my son-in-
law, Cluny, so many, and likewise my cousin, and my good friend;' then
speaking of those on whom the government reckoned for support he would
say, 'So-and-so is lukewarm; this person is ruled by his wife, who is
with us; the clergy are anything but hostile to us; and as for the
soldiers and sailors, half are disaffected to King George, and the rest
cowards.' Yet when things came to a trial, this person whom he had
calculated upon to join the Pretender did not stir from his home, another
joined the hostile ranks, the presumed cowards turned out heroes, and
those whom he thought heroes ran away like lusty fellows at Culloden; in
a word, he found himself utterly mistaken, and in nothing more than
himself; he thought he was a hero, and proved himself nothing more than
an old fox; he got up a hollow tree, didn't he, just like a fox?

"'L' opere sue non furon leonine, ma di volp