tful observance went all currently down with Owen; but my
father looked a little closer into men's bosoms, and whether suspicious
of this excess of deference, or, as a lover of brevity and simplicity in
business, tired with these gentlemen's long-winded professions of regard,
he had uniformly resisted their desire to become his sole agents in
Scotland. On the contrary, he transacted many affairs through a
correspondent of a character perfectly different--a man whose good
opinion of himself amounted to self-conceit, and who, disliking the
English in general as much as my father did the Scotch, would hold no
communication but on a footing of absolute equality; jealous, moreover;
captious occasionally; as tenacious of his own opinions in point of form
as Owen could be of his; and totally indifferent though the authority of
all Lombard Street had stood against his own private opinion.

As these peculiarities of temper rendered it difficult to transact
business with Mr. Nicol Jarvie,--as they occasioned at times disputes and
coldness between the English house and their correspondent, which were
only got over by a sense of mutual interest,--as, moreover, Owen's
personal vanity sometimes suffered a little in the discussions to which
they gave rise, you cannot be surprised, Tresham, that our old friend
threw at all times the weight of his influence in favour of the civil,
discreet, accommodating concern of MacVittie and MacFin, and spoke of
Jarvie as a petulant, conceited Scotch pedlar, with whom there was no
dealing.

It was also not surprising, that in these circumstances, which I only
learned in detail some time afterwards, Owen, in the difficulties to
which the house was reduced by the absence of my father, and the
disappearance of Rashleigh, should, on his arrival in Scotland, which
took place two days before mine, have recourse to the friendship of those
correspondents, who had always professed themselves obliged, gratified,
and devoted to the service of his principal. He was received at Messrs.
MacVittie and MacFin's counting-house in the Gallowgate, with something
like the devotion a Catholic would pay to his tutelar saint. But, alas!
this sunshine was soon overclouded, when, encouraged by the fair hopes
which it inspired, he opened the difficulties of the house to his
friendly correspondents, and requested their counsel and assistance.
MacVittie was almost stunned by the communication; and MacFin, ere it was
completed