trates.
Didna the Provost tell the laddies the last time he gave the prizes to
'take notice of my freend Bailie MacConachie, and try to be like him?'
And now, when one of them has taken his advice, if ye dinna turn round
on the street and half kill him, till he had to be brought home half
faintin' to his father's house! Fine-like conduct for a magistrate! Ye
bloodthirsty old ruffian!

"Came to make inquiries, did ye? Ye made enough inquiries, by all
accounts, on the Terrace. Expression of regret, was it? We don't want
yir regret, ye hypocritical Pharisee! Present of a top? I wonder ye have
the face! Ye break a laddie's head and then offer him a top! I can buy
tops myself for my family. Confound ye! to think ye're standing there
after manglin' a poor, defenceless, harmless, motherless laddie! Ye
should be ashamed to show yir face in Muirtown; and if there was any
public spirit in this town, ye would be drummed out o' the place!

"Look ye here, Bailie MacConachie"--and Mr. McGuffie adopted a
conciliatory tone--"the best of us will make mistakes, and ye've made a
particularly big one when ye knockit down Peter McGuffie in the face of
the public of Muirtown. Ye may bet on that and take my tip for it. Let's
settle this matter fair and sure as between man and man. Ye say ye're
sorry, and ye don't want any noise made about it. Well, now, I've lived
here man and boy for fifty years, and any man in Muirtown will tell you
I'm straight. If I give a warranty with any horse, ye needn't be afraid
to buy that horse, and I'll deal with ye on the square.

"Ye and me are about an age of and on, and we ought to be pretty even
as fighting men. Ye have the pull of me in height, but I would say that
I am nimbler on my legs. Ye might be called a heavy weight, and I am a
middle weight, but there isn't much in that. We could meet pretty level
with the gloves.

"Suppose, now, we just went into the straw-shed here, and stripped and
fought the matter of six rounds, easy and quiet? There would be no
mischief done, and no bad blood left, and that would be the end of the
matter.

"Magistrate, did ye say, and elder in the Kirk. What do ye take me for?
Do ye mean to say I'd split on ye, and go round Muirtown saying that
Bailie MacConachie and me had a friendly turn with the gloves! Ye don't
do me justice. Why, there's nobody outside this stable-yard would ever
hear tell of it; and if they did, they would respect ye, and count ye an
able-bodied ma