which may hereafter be brought into Parliament,
unless it shall contain a clause to that effect. It is also
their intention to take up the cause of the poor and
neglected STOKER, for whose accommodation, and social,
moral, religious, and intellectual improvement, a large
stock of evangelical tracts will speedily be required.
Tenders of these, in quantities of not less than 12,000, may
be sent in to the Interim Secretary. Shares must be applied
for within ten days from the present date.

"By order of the Provisional Committee,
"ROBT. M'CORKINDALE, _Secretary_."

"There!" said Bob, slapping down the prospectus on the table, with as
much triumph as if it had been the original of Magna Charta--"What do
you think of that? If it doesn't do the business effectually, I shall
submit to be called a Dutchman. That last touch about the stoker will
bring us in the subscriptions of the old ladies by the score."

"Very masterly, indeed," said I. "But who the deuce is
Mhic-Mhac-vich-Induibh?"

"A _bona fide_ chief, I assure you, though a little reduced: I picked
him up upon the Broomielaw. His grandfather had an island somewhere to
the west of the Hebrides; but it is not laid down in the maps."

"And the Captain of M'Alcohol?"

"A crack distiller."

"And the Factor for Glentumblers?"

"His principal customer. But, bless you, my dear St Mirrens! don't
bother yourself any more about the committee. They are as respectable
a set--on paper at least--as you would wish to see of a summer's
morning, and the beauty of it is that they will give us no manner of
trouble. Now about the allocation. You and I must restrict ourselves
to a couple of thousand shares a-piece. That's only a third of the
whole, but it won't do to be greedy."

"But, Bob, consider! Where on earth are we to find the money to pay up
the deposits?"

"Can you, the principal director of the Glenmutchkin Railway, ask me,
the secretary, such a question? Don't you know that any of the banks
will give us tick to the amount 'of half the deposits.' All that is
settled already, and you can get your two thousand pounds whenever you
please merely for the signing of a bill. Sawley must get a thousand
according to stipulation--Jobson, Heckles, and Grabbie, at least five
hundred a-piece, and another five hundred, I should think, will
exhaust the remaining means of the committee. So that, out of our
whol