. Jarvie,
is young Mr. Frank Osbaldistone, only child of the head of our house, who
should have been taken into our firm at the time Mr. Rashleigh
Osbaldistone, his cousin, had the luck to be taken into it"--(Here Owen
could not suppress a groan)--"But howsoever"--

"Oh, I have heard of that smaik," said the Scotch merchant, interrupting
him; "it is he whom your principal, like an obstinate auld fule, wad make
a merchant o', wad he or wad he no,--and the lad turned a strolling
stage-player, in pure dislike to the labour an honest man should live by.
Weel, sir, what say you to your handiwork? Will Hamlet the Dane, or
Hamlet's ghost, be good security for Mr. Owen, sir?"

"I don't deserve your taunt," I replied, "though I respect your motive,
and am too grateful for the assistance you have afforded Mr. Owen, to
resent it. My only business here was to do what I could (it is perhaps
very little) to aid Mr. Owen in the management of my father's affairs. My
dislike of the commercial profession is a feeling of which I am the best
and sole judge."

"I protest," said the Highlander, "I had some respect for this callant
even before I ken'd what was in him; but now I honour him for his
contempt of weavers and spinners, and sic-like mechanical persons and
their pursuits."

"Ye're mad, Rob," said the Bailie--"mad as a March hare--though wherefore
a hare suld be mad at March mair than at Martinmas, is mair than I can
weel say. Weavers! Deil shake ye out o' the web the weaver craft made.
Spinners! ye'll spin and wind yourself a bonny pirn. And this young
birkie here, that ye're hoying and hounding on the shortest road to the
gallows and the deevil, will his stage-plays and his poetries help him
here, dye think, ony mair than your deep oaths and drawn dirks, ye
reprobate that ye are?--Will _Tityre tu patulae,_ as they ca' it, tell
him where Rashleigh Osbaldistone is? or Macbeth, and all his kernes and
galla-glasses, and your awn to boot, Rob, procure him five thousand
pounds to answer the bills which fall due ten days hence, were they a'
rouped at the Cross,--basket-hilts, Andra-Ferraras, leather targets,
brogues, brochan, and sporrans?"

"Ten days," I answered, and instinctively drew out Diana Vernon's packet;
and the time being elapsed during which I was to keep the seal sacred, I
hastily broke it open. A sealed letter fell from a blank enclosure, owing
to the trepidation with which I opened the parcel. A slight current of
wind,