liskie of his face, from beneath James's cowl, it was growing as black
as the crown of my hat. It feared me much that murder would be the
upshot, the webs being all heeled over, both of broad cloth, buckram,
cassimir, and Welsh flannel; and the paper shapings and worsted runds
coiled about their throats and bodies like fiery serpents. At long and
last, I thought it became me, being the head of the house, to sound a
parley, and bid them give the savage a mouthful of fresh air, to see if
he had anything to say in his defence.

Cursecowl, by this time, had forcible assurance of our ability to
overpower him, and finding he had by far the worst of it, was obliged to
grow tamer, using the first breath he got to cry out, "A barley, ye
thieves! a barley! I tell ye, give me wind. There's not a man in nine
of ye!"

Finding our own strength, we saw, by this time, that we were masters of
the field; nevertheless, we took care to make good terms when they were
in our power; nor would we allow Cursecowl to sit upright, till after he
had said, three times over, on his honour as a gentleman, that he would
behave as became one.

After giving his breeches-knees a skuff with his loof, to dad off the
stoure, he came, right foot foremost, to the counter side, while the
laddies were dighting their brows, and stowing away the webs upon their
ends round about, saying, "Maister Wauch, how have ye the conscience to
send hame such a piece o' wark as that coat to ony decent man? Do ye
dare to imagine that I am a Jerusalem spider, that I could be crammed,
neck and heels, into such a thing as that? Fye, shame--it would not
button on yourself, man, scarecrow-looking mortal though ye be!"

James Batter's blood was now up, and boiling like an old Roman's; so he
was determined to show Cursecowl that I had a friend in court, able and
willing to keep him at stave's-end. "Keep a calm sough," said James
Batter, interfering, "and not miscall the head of the house in his own
shop; or, to say nothing of present consequences, by way of showing ye
the road to the door, perhaps Maister Sneckdrawer, the penny-writer, 'll
give ye a caption-paper with a broad margin, to claw your elbow with at
your leisure, my good fellow."

"Pugh, pugh," cried Cursecowl, snapping his finger and thumb at James's
beak, "I do not value your threatening an ill halfpenny. Come away out
your ways to the crown of the causey, and I'll box any three of ye, over
the bannys, for h