ailor in a
certain city not a hundred miles from Arthur's Seat. He was a little,
active man, sharp and keen as a razor; and altogether a
dangerous-looking customer to those who found it inconvenient to
settle his demands in due time; he was, in short, the dread and terror
of dilatory payers. In such cases, he hung out the black flag, and
gave no quarter. He was, in truth, just as merciless a tailor as ever
cut cloth, and well were his savage propensities known to, and much
were they respected by, a certain class of his customers--meaning
those who stuck too long on the left-hand side of his ledger--the
fatal ledger. Such, then, was our other interlocutor, Mr Fairly. We
have only to add, that the scene which we have opened was in a certain
parlour in that gentleman's house, and then to proceed with the
conference which this necessary digression has interrupted.

"The decreet's oot the morn, Mr Fairly, against that man Simmins,"
said his visiter, Mr John Howison; "what do ye mean to do? Are we to
incarcerate?"

It was a needless question; for Fairly incarcerated everybody, right
and left, in such circumstances, sparing neither sex nor age.

"Incarcerate!" he repeated, with a ferocious emphasis. "Surely,
surely. Nab the scoundrel. Don't give him a minute beyond his time.
Let me see what were the articles again." And he proceeded to turn
over the leaves of his ominous ledger. "Ay, a surtout, extra superfine
Saxony blue, richly braided, &c. &c., L4:15s., due 21st December, and
this is the 19th January. A month past date! Nab him, Howison. Nab the
villain, and we'll give him six months of the cage, at any rate, and
that'll be some satisfaction."

Howison grinned a grin, partly of satisfaction at the prospect of a
job, and partly of approval of his employer's wit. "But I don't know
the chap exactly," said the former. "I only saw him once."

"Oh, that's easily sorted," replied Fairly. "Although you don't know
him, you may know my surtout, which he constantly wears--having no
other coat, I verily believe, to his back. Here, see, here is the
neighbour of it." And he ran into a back apartment, whence he shortly
returned with a very flashy article of the description he referred to,
and, expanding it before Howison, bade him mark its peculiarities.
"Sir," he said, "it's one of a thousand. The only one of the same cut
and fashion in the whole city. _That_ I know. I would pick it out,
blind, from amongst a million."

Howison h