e between him and the boys which
would never have been forgotten. Had another pane of glass been broken
by a Seminary ball, the value thereof in a packet of halfpence, with an
expression of regret, would have been handed in before evening. The
honorary freedom of the school would have been conferred on the Bailie,
without any public ceremony, but with immense practical advantage, and
although the Bailie was surfeited with civic honours, yet even he might
have tasted a new pleasure as he passed along the terrace to see the
boys suspend a game for an instant to let him pass in stately walk, and
to hear Speug cry, "Oot o' the Bailie's road," and to receive a salute
from tailless Highland bonnets that were touched to none outside the
school, except to the Count and Dr. Manley. If Providence had given a
touch of imagination to the Bailie, and his head had not been swollen by
a position approaching that of the angels, he would have come to terms
at once with the boys, in which case bygones would have been bygones,
and he would have been spared much humiliation.

Unfortunately the Bailie allowed his temper to get the better of him,
raging furiously in public places, and breathing forth threatenings
about what he would do to the plotter, till all Muirtown, which
otherwise might have pitied him, held its sides. He kept our single
detective at work for a fortnight, who finally extracted from London
John that the "boardies" containing the shameful advertisement had been
given him by a man uncommonly like the detective himself and that the
said "boardies" were not to be compared with those he used to carry in
London. The detective also learned, on a somewhat risky visit to Mr.
McGuffie's stables, that the Speug had spent the whole day of that
historical Saturday till the hour of two--when he called for peppermints
at the Bailie's shop--in cleaning out his rabbit-hutch and other
domestic duties--this on the testimony of three of Mr. McGuffie's
grooms, each of whom was willing to swear the same anywhere, or fight
the detective, with gloves or without gloves, in the stable-yard or any
other place which might be agreed upon. The Bailie also, going from bad
to worse, offered a reward of L5 for any information which would lead to
the conviction of the offender, and received thirty letters--so many
anonymous, attacking his character, public and private, and so many
signed, from various cranks in Muirtown, in which the crime was
assigned t