THE LAWYER'S TALES.

LORD KAMES'S PUZZLE.


On looking over some Session papers which had belonged to Lord Kames,
with the object, I confess, of getting hold of some facts--those
entities called by Quintilian the bones of truth, the more by token, I
fancy, that they so often stick in the throat--which might contribute to
my legends, I came to some sheets whereon his lordship had written some
hasty remarks, to the effect that the case Napier _versus_ Napier was
the most curious puzzle that ever he had witnessed since he had taken
his seat on the bench. The papers were fragmentary, consisting of parts
of a Reclaiming Petition and some portion of a Proof that had been led
in support of a brieve of service; but I got enough to enable me to give
the story, which I shall do in such a connected manner as to take the
reader along with me, I hope pleasantly, and without any inclination to
choke upon the foresaid bones.

Without being very particular about the year, which really I do not know
with further precision than that it was within the first five years of
Lord Kames's senator-ship, I request the reader to fancy himself in a
small domicile in Toddrick's Wynd, in the old city of Edinburgh; and I
request this the more readily that, as we all know, Nature does not
exclude very humble places from the regions of romance, neither does she
deny to very humble personages the characters of heroes and heroines.