tockings, buckle shoes, and
flat broad-brimmed beaver hat; walking erect with a bunch of flowers
in his left hand, and his cane, held by the middle, borne on his right
shoulder, as Smellie tells us was Smith's usual habit, "as a soldier
carries his musket." When he walked his head always moved gently from
side to side, and his body swayed, Smellie says, "vermicularly," as if
at each alternate step "he meant to alter his direction, or even to
turn back." Often, moreover, his lips would be moving all the while,
and smiling in rapt conversation with invisible companions. A very
noticeable figure he was as he went up and down the High Street, and
he used to tell himself the observations of two market women about him
as he marched past them one day. "Hegh sirs!" said one, shaking her
head significantly. "And he's weel put on too!" rejoined the other,
surprised that one who appeared from his dress to be likely to have
friends should be left by them to walk abroad alone.

There were five Commissioners in the Scotch Board of Customs, but
Smith's colleagues were none of them men of any public reputation at
the time, and they are now mere names; but the name of the Secretary
of the Board, R.E. Phillips, may be mentioned for the circumstance
that, after living to the great age of 104, he was buried--for what
reason I know not--in the same grave with Adam Smith in Canongate
Churchyard. The business of the office was mostly of a routine and
simple character: considering appeals from merchants against the local
collector's assessments; the appointment of a new officer here, the
suppression of one there; a report on a projected colliery; a plan for
a lighthouse, a petition from a wine importer, or the owner of a
bounty sloop; a representation about the increase of illicit trade in
Orkney, or the appearance of smuggling vessels in the Minch; the
despatch of troops to repress illegal practices at some distillery, or
to watch a suspected part of the coast; the preparation of the annual
returns of income and expenditure, the payment of salaries, and
transmission of the balance to the Treasury.

Smith attended to those duties with uncommon diligence; he says
himself, in his letter to the Principal of Glasgow College in 1787 on
his appointment to the Rectorship, that he was so regular an attendant
at the Custom House that he could "take the play for a week at any
time" without giving offence or provoking comment. He was evidently a
very c