the long o't was, that I got at last an audience o' my honourable
friend.

"'Well, bailie,' said he, 'I'm glad to see you in London,' and a
hantle o' ither courtly glammer that's no worth a repetition; and,
from less to mair, we proceeded to sift into the matter and end of
my coming to ask the help o' his hand to get me a post in the
government. But I soon saw, that wi a' the phraseology that lay at
his tongue end during the election, about his power and will to
serve us, his ain turn ser't, he cared so little for me. Howsever
after tarrying some time, and going to him every day, at long and
last he got me a tide-waiter's place at the custom-house; a poor
hungry situation, no worth the grassum at a new tack of the warst
land in the town's aught. But minnows are better than nae fish, and
a tide-waiter's place was a step towards a better, if I could have
waited. Luckily, however, for me, a flock of fleets and ships frae
the East and West Indies came in a' thegither; and there was sic a
stress for tide-waiters, that before I was sworn in and tested, I
was sent down to a grand ship in the Malabar trade frae China,
loaded with tea and other rich commodities; the captain whereof, a
discreet man, took me down to the cabin, and gave me a dram of wine,
and, when we were by oursels, he said to me -

"'Mr M'Lucre, what will you take to shut your eyes for an hour?'

"'I'll no take a hundred pounds,' was my answer.

"'I'll make it guineas,' quoth he.

"Surely, thought I, my eyne maun be worth pearls and diamonds to the