ce wud and aye waur_," silly for once and silly for always.

CHAPTER XXI.

On a beautiful evening in September, when a new crescent moon was
pointing through the saffron sky like the lit tip of a finger, the City
Fathers had assembled at the corner of the Fleckie Road. Though the moon
was peeping, the dying glory of the day was still upon the town. The
white smoke rose straight and far in the golden mystery of the heavens,
and a line of dark roofs, transfigured against the west, wooed the eye
to musing. But though the bodies felt the fine evening bathe them in a
sensuous content, as they smoked and dawdled, they gave never a thought
to its beauty. For there had been a blitheness in the town that day, and
every other man seemed to have been preeing the demijohn.

Drucken Wabster and Brown the ragman came round the corner, staggering.

"Young Gourlay's drunk!" blurted Wabster--and reeled himself as he
spoke.

"Is he a wee fou?" said the Deacon eagerly.

"Wee be damned," said Wabster; "he's as fou as the Baltic Sea! If you
wait here, you'll be sure to see him! He'll be round the corner
directly."

"De-ar me, is he so bad as that?" said the ex-Provost, raising his hands
in solemn reprobation. He raised his eyes to heaven at the same time, as
if it pained them to look on a world that endured the burden of a young
Gourlay. "In broad daylight, too!" he sighed. "De-ar me, has he come to
this?"

"Yis, Pravast," hiccupped Brown, "he has! He's as phull of drink as a
whelk-shell's phull of whelk. He's nearly as phull as meself--and
begorra, that's mighty phull." He stared suddenly, scratching his head
solemnly as if the fact had just occurred to him. Then he winked.

"You could set fire to his braith!" cried Wabster. "A match to his mouth
would send him in a lowe."

"A living gas jet!" said Brown.

They staggered away, sometimes rubbing shoulders as they lurched
together, sometimes with the road between them.

"I kenned young Gourlay was on the fuddle when I saw him swinging off
this morning in his greatcoat," cried Sandy Toddle. "There was debauch
in the flap o' the tails o't."

"Man, have you noticed that too!" cried another eagerly. "He's aye warst
wi' the coat on!"

"Clothes undoubtedly affect the character," said Johnny Coe. "It takes a
gentleman to wear a lordly coat without swaggering."

"There's not a doubt o' tha-at!" approved the baker, who was merry with
his day's carousal; "there's not a doubt