the laird of Bodletonbrae, who was a very capital hand at a joke;
and he, chancing to notice that the whole of the magistrates and
town-council then present wore wigs, feigned to become out of all
bounds with the demonstrations of his devotion to king and country;
and others that were there, not wishing to appear any thing behind
him in the same, vied in their sprose of patriotism, and bragging in
a manful manner of what, in the hour of trial, they would be seen to
do. Bodletonbrae was all the time laughing in his sleeve at the way
he was working them on, till at last, after they had flung the
glasses twice or thrice over their shoulders, he proposed we should
throw our wigs in the fire next. Surely there was some glammer
about us that caused us not to observe his devilry, for the laird
had no wig on his head. Be that, however, as it may, the
instigation took effect, and in the twinkling of an eye every scalp
was bare, and the chimley roaring with the roasting of gude kens how
many powdered wigs well fattened with pomatum. But scarcely was the
deed done, till every one was admonished of his folly, by the laird
laughing, like a being out of his senses, at the number of bald
heads and shaven crowns that his device had brought to light, and by
one and all of us experiencing the coldness of the air on the
nakedness of our upper parts.

The first thing that we then did was to send the town-officers, who
were waiting on as usual for the dribbles of the bottles and the
leavings in the bowls, to bring our nightcaps, but I trow few were
so lucky as me, for I had a spare wig at home, which Mrs Pawkie, my
wife, a most considerate woman, sent to me; so that I was, in a
manner, to all visibility, none the worse of the ploy; but the rest
of the council were perfect oddities within their wigs, and the
sorest thing of all was, that the exploit of burning the wigs had