"What, man!" replied Master George, "you must take patience--You are a
man that deals in time, and can make it go fast and slow at pleasure;
you, of all the world, have least reason to complain, if a little of
it be lost now and then.--But here come your boys, and bringing in a
slain man betwixt them, I think--here has been serious mischief, I am
afraid."

"The more mischief the better sport," said the crabbed old watchmaker.
"I am blithe, though, that it's neither of the twa loons themselves.--
What are ye bringing a corpse here for, ye fause villains?" he added,
addressing the two apprentices, who, at the head of a considerable mob
of their own class, some of whom bore evident marks of a recent fray,
were carrying the body betwixt them.

"He is not dead yet, sir," answered Tunstall.

"Carry him into the apothecary's, then," replied his master. "D'ye
think I can set a man's life in motion again, as if he were a clock or
a timepiece?"

"For godsake, old friend," said his acquaintance, "let us have him
here at the nearest--he seems only in a swoon."

"A swoon?" said Ramsay, "and what business had he to swoon in the
streets? Only, if it will oblige my friend Master George, I would take
in all the dead men in St. Dunstan's parish. Call Sam Porter to look
after the shop." So saying, the stunned man, being the identical
Scotsman who had passed a short time before amidst the jeers of the
apprentices, was carried into the back shop of the artist, and there
placed in an armed chair till the apothecary from over the way came to