n, but back to yir ain hoose.
If ye maun taste, would it no have been more respectable to keep
indoors, instead of making an exhibeetion of yourself afore the
Seminary? It's no becomin' in a magistrate, and it's michty bad for the
laddies."

It was the sergeant who delivered the astonishing figure at the
blameless home of Bailie MacConachie, although it is right to say that
this visit was not at all in the plan, and called forth a vigorous
protest from the Bailie's substitute. And to the day of his death, the
real and proper Bailie spent odd moments of his spare time in explaining
to an incredulous public that he had never "tasted" in his life, and
that on the day in question he had been transacting private business in
Dundee.

THE TRIUMPH OF THE SEMINARY

XV

As the East is distant from the West, so far was Muirtown Seminary
removed in its manners and customs from an English public school; but at
one point they met on common ground, and that was the "tuck-shop." It
does not matter that an English house master be careful to provide an
ample supply of wholesome food for his boys, and even add, on occasion,
toothsome dainties, such as jam at Sunday tea, and sausages for a
Saturday supper, they will agree unanimously, and declare aloud, that
they can hardly recall such a thing as breakfast, so ghostly has it
grown, and that they would be ashamed to offer their dinner to the
beasts which perish. They will write such descriptions home, and hold
such conferences with friends spending the holidays with them, and they
will all vie with one another in applying such weird and fearsome
adjectives to the butter, milk, coffee, meat, potatoes, and
pudding--but at the mention of pudding they will simply look at one
another and be silent, despairing of the English language--that their
horrified parents will take counsel together by the hour whether their
poor boy ought not to be taken from school and surrounded by home
comforts. When the emaciated invalid hears of this drastic measure, he
protests strongly, and insists that it would ruin him for life; for, to
do the ruffians justice, a boy may be half-starved and swished every
second day, and bullied between times, till his life is hardy worth
living, he will still stand by his school, and prefer it as a place of
residence to his home. Neither ample meals, nor the pretty bedroom with
white curtains, nor the long lie in the morning, nor a party in the
evening, nor all his