e Charles Edward met
Macgrugar of Glengrugar and his clan! We could not possibly have lighted
on a more promising place. Hand us over that sheet of paper, like a good
fellow, and a pen. There is no time to be lost, and the sooner we get
out the prospectus the better."

"But, Heaven bless you, Bob, there's a great deal to be thought of
first. Who are we to get for a provisional committee?"

"That's very true," said Bob, musingly. "We _must_ treat them to some
respectable names, that is, good-sounding ones. I'm afraid there is
little chance of our producing a peer to begin with?"

"None whatever--unless we could invent one, and that's hardly safe;
'Burke's Peerage' has gone through too many editions. Couldn't we try
the Dormants?"

"That would be rather dangerous in the teeth of the standing orders.
But what do you say to a baronet? There's Sir Polloxfen Tremens. He got
himself served the other day to a Nova Scotia baronetcy, with just as
much title as you or I have; and he has sported the riband, and dined
out on the strength of it ever since. He'll join us at once, for he has
not a sixpence to lose."

"Down with him, then," and we headed the provisional list with the
pseudo Orange tawny.

"Now," said Bob, "it's quite indispensable, as this is a Highland line,
that we should put forward a chief or two. That has always a great
effect upon the English, whose feudal notions are rather of the
mistiest, and principally derived from Waverley."

"Why not write yourself down as the laird of M'Corkindale?" said I. "I
dare say you would not be negatived by a counter-claim."

"That would hardly do," replied Bob, "as I intend to be secretary. After
all, what's the use of thinking about it? Here goes for an extempore
chief;" and the villain wrote down the name of Tavish M'Tavish of
Invertavish.

"I say, though," said I, "we must have a real Highlander on the list. If
we go on this way, it will become a justiciary matter."

"You're devilish scrupulous, Gus," said Bob, who, if left to himself,
would have stuck in the names of the heathen gods and goddesses, or
borrowed his directors from the Ossianic chronicles, rather than have
delayed the prospectus. "Where the mischief are we to find the men? I
can think of no others likely to go the whole hog; can you?"

"I don't know a single Celt in Glasgow except old M'Closkie, the drunken
porter at the corner of Jamaica Street."

"He's the very man! I suppose, after the manner of