brought on the carpet, but just to
come to the vote at once. Accordingly this was done, but it made no
difference to Mr Hickery; on the contrary, he said, in a vehement manner,
that he was sure there must be some corrupt understanding among us,
otherwise a matter of such importance could not have been decided by a
silent vote; and at every session of the council, till some new matter of
difference cast up, he continued cuckooing about the lamp-job, as he
called it, till he had sickened every body out of all patience.

CHAPTER XXVII--THE PLAINSTONES

The first question that changed the bark of Mr Hickery, was my proposal
for the side plainstones of the high street. In the new paving of the
crown of the causey, some years before, the rise in the middle had been
levelled to an equality with the side loans, and in disposing of the lamp-
posts, it was thought advantageous to place them halfway from the houses
and the syvers, between the loans and the crown of the causey, which had
the effect at night, of making the people who were wont, in their travels
and visitations, to keep the middle of the street, to diverge into the
space and path between the lamp-posts and the houses. This, especially
in wet weather, was attended with some disadvantages; for the pavement,
close to the houses, was not well laid, and there being then no ronns to
the houses, at every other place, particularly where the nepus-gables
were towards the streets, the rain came gushing in a spout, like as if
the windows of heaven were opened. And, in consequence, it began to be
freely conversed, that there would be a great comfort in having the sides
of the streets paved with flags, like the plainstones of Glasgow, and
that an obligation should be laid on the landlords, to put up ronns to
kepp the rain, and to conduct the water down in pipes by the sides of the
houses;--all which furnished Mr Hickery with fresh topics for his
fasherie about the lamps, and was, as he said, proof and demonstration of
that most impolitic, corrupt, and short-sighted job, the consequences of
which would reach, in the shape of some new tax, every ramification of
society;--with divers other American argumentatives to the same effect.
However, in process of time, by a judicious handling and the help of an
advantageous free grassum, which we got for some of the town lands from
Mr Shuttlethrift the manufacturer, who was desirous to build a
villa-house, we got the flagstone