be the
end of ye, Bailie MacConachie."

When Mr. McGuffie returned to the stable-yard he called for his son, and
passed a careful hand over Peter's head, and then he declared that Speug
was a chip of the old block and prophesied aloud that there lay before
him a long and useful life.

THE BAILIE'S DOUBLE

XIV

Muirtown is not a large city, and schoolboys of high principle and
domestic habits used to go home in the dinner-hour and take the meal
with their anxious mothers, who seized the opportunity of repairing the
rents made in their clothes since morning, and giving them good advice
on their behaviour. Thoroughly good boys, who had been tossed to and
fro, much against their will, in the tempest of morning play, were glad
to go into harbour and come back at two o'clock, not only revictualled,
but also re-fitted and re-painted for the troubled voyage of the
afternoon; and boys not so entirely good as the Dowbiggins, and other
models of propriety, still appreciated the home trip, because, although
there might be an embarrassing review of garments, and awkward questions
might be asked about a mark on the face, there was always a toothsome
dainty for a growing laddie, weary with intellectual work and the toils
of a snow-fight. As the business of a horsedealer took Mr. McGuffie
senior in various directions, and as in no case were the arrangements of
his house since Mrs. McGuffie's death of an extremely regular character,
there was no meal to which his promising son--Speug--could return with
any confidence; and therefore Peter did not make a practice of going
home at one o'clock, unless there was a special event at the stables,
such as the arrival of a new horse, in which case he invited a few
friends to an inspection, with light refreshments; or unless, having
racked his brain to the utmost for four hours, he was still in sheer
despair of mischief. With one or two other young friends of a like mind,
he was accustomed to spend the dinner-hour in what might be called
extramural studies--rowing over to the island below the bridge against
the tide and coming back gloriously with the current; assisting the
salmon-fishers to draw their nets and gather the silver spoil; in the
happy snow-time raiding the playground of a rival school when the boys
were away, and leaving insulting remarks wrought in snow; or attending
the drill of the cavalry on the South Meadow. Like other guerillas, he
carried his biltong and mealies w