ion, though very ludicrous in itself,
goes down wonderfully. Bob gradually became a sort of authority, and
his opinions got quoted on 'Change. He was no ass, notwithstanding his
peculiarities, and made good use of his opportunity.

For myself, I bore my new dignities with an air of modest meekness. A
certain degree of starchness is indispensable for a railway director,
if he means to go forward in his high calling and prosper; he must
abandon all juvenile eccentricities, and aim at the appearance of a
decided enemy to free trade in the article of Wild Oats. Accordingly,
as the first step towards respectability, I eschewed coloured
waistcoats, and gave out that I was a marrying man. No man under
forty, unless he is a positive idiot, will stand forth as a
theoretical bachelor. It is all nonsense to say that there is any
thing unpleasant in being courted. Attention, whether from male or
female, tickles the vanity, and although I have a reasonable, and, I
hope, not unwholesome regard, for the gratification of my other
appetites, I confess that this same vanity is by far the most poignant
of the whole. I therefore surrendered myself freely to the soft
allurements thrown in my way by such matronly denizens of Glasgow as
were possessed of stock in the shape of marriageable daughters; and
walked the more readily into their toils, because every party, though
nominally for the purposes of tea, wound up with a hot supper, and
something hotter still by way of assisting the digestion.

I don't know whether it was my determined conduct at the allocation,
my territorial title, or a most exaggerated idea of my circumstances,
that worked upon the mind of Mr Sawley. Possibly it was a combination
of the three; but sure enough few days had elapsed before I received a
formal card of invitation to a tea and serious conversation. Now
serious conversation is a sort of thing that I never shone in,
possibly because my early studies were framed in a different
direction; but as I really was unwilling to offend the respectable
coffin-maker, and as I found that the Captain of M'Alcohol--a decided
trump in his way--had also received a summons, I notified my
acceptance.

M'Alcohol and I went together. The Captain, an enormous brawny Celt,
with superhuman whiskers, and a shock of the fieriest hair, had figged
himself out, _more majorum_, in the full Highland costume. I never saw
Rob Roy on the stage look half so dignified or ferocious. He glittered