of course a spoiled urchin, to the forms of the little republic?
--why, Alan. And who taught me to smoke a cobbler, pin a losen,
head a bicker, and hold the bannets?--[Break a window, head a
skirmish with stones, and hold the bonnet, or handkerchief, which
used to divide High School boys when fighting.] Alan, once more.
If I became the pride of the Yards, and the dread of the
hucksters in the High School Wynd, it was under thy patronage;
and, but for thee, I had been contented with humbly passing
through the Cowgate Port, without climbing over the top of it,
and had never seen the KITTLE NINE-STEPS nearer than from
Bareford's Parks. [A pass on the very brink of the Castle rock
to the north, by which it is just possible for a goat, or a High
School boy, to turn the corner of the building where it rises
from the edge of the precipice. This was so favourite a feat
with the 'hell and neck boys' of the higher classes, that at one
time sentinels were posted to prevent its repetition. One of the
nine-steps was rendered more secure because the climber could
take hold of the root of a nettle, so precarious were the means
of passing this celebrated spot. The manning the Cowgate Port,
especially in snowball time, was also a choice amusement, as it
offered an inaccessible station for the boys who used these
missiles to the annoyance of the passengers. The gateway is now
demolished; and probably most of its garrison lie as low as the
fortress. To recollect that the author himself, however
naturally disqualified, was one of those juvenile dreadnoughts,
is a sad reflection to one who cannot now step over a brook
without assistance.]

You taught me to keep my fingers off the weak, and to clench my
fist against the strong--to carry no tales out of school--to