William MacGregor, the linen manufacturer, a man who possessed a
score of hand-looms or so--half of which, from the advance of cotton
and the decline of linen-wear, now stood idle--but who had already a
sufficient deposit in the hands of Mr. Thomson the banker--agent,
that is, for the county-bank--to secure him against any necessity
for taking to cotton shirts himself, which were an abomination and
offence unpardonable in his eyes.

'Can ye tell me, Mr. Cocker,' he said, 'what mak's Sandy, Lord
Rothie, or Wrathy, or what suld he be ca'd?--tak' to The Bothie at a
time like this, whan there's neither huntin', nor fishin', nor
shutin', nor onything o' the kin' aboot han' to be playacks till
him, the bonnie bairn--'cep' it be otters an' sic like?'

William was a shrunken old man, with white whiskers and a black wig,
a keen black eye, always in search of the ludicrous in other people,
and a mouth ever on the move, as if masticating something comical.

'You know just as well as I do,' answered Mr. Cocker, the Marquis of
Boarshead's factor for the surrounding estate. 'He never was in the
way of giving a reason for anything, least of all for his own
movements.'

'Somebody was sayin' to me,' resumed MacGregor, who, in all
probability, invented the story at the moment, 'that the prince took
him kissin' ane o' his servan' lasses, and kickit him oot o' Carlton
Hoose into the street, and he canna win' ower the disgrace o' 't.'

''Deed for the kissin',' said Mr. Thomson, a portly,
comfortable-looking man, 'that's neither here nor there, though it