sums for his beef and provisions. In short, in the course of the
third year from the time of the election, he was rookit of every
plack he had in the world, and was obligated to take the benefit of
the divor's bill, soon after which he went suddenly away from the
town, on the pretence of going into Edinburgh, on some business of
legality with his wife's brother, with whom he had entered into a
plea concerning the moiety of a steading at the town-head. But he
did not stop on any such concern there; on the contrary, he was off,
and up to London in a trader from Leith, to try if he could get a
post in the government by the aid of the nabob, our member; who, by
all accounts, was hand and glove with the king's ministers. The
upshot of this journey to London was very comical; and when the
bailie afterwards came back, and him and me were again on terms of
visitation, many a jocose night we spent over the story of the same;
for the bailie was a kittle hand at a bowl of toddy; and his
adventure was so droll, especially in the way he was wont to
rehearse the particulars, that it cannot fail to be an edification
to posterity, to read and hear how it happened, and all about it. I
may therefore take leave to digress into the circumstantials, by way
of lightening for a time the seriousness of the sober and important
matter, whereof it is my intent that this book shall be a register
and record to future times.



CHAPTER VII--THE BRIBE



Mr M'Lucre, going to London, as I have intimated in the foregoing