CHAPTER XXV .-- A PHILISTINE IN THE COAL-HOLE.
They steeked doors, they steeked yetts, Close to the cheek and chin; They steeked them a' but a wee wicket, And Lammikin crap in.
_Ballad of the Lammikin_.
Hame cam our gudeman at een, And hame cam he; And there he spied a man Where a man shouldna be.
Hoo cam this man, kimmer, And who can it be; Hoo cam this carle here, Without the leave o' me?
_Old Song_.
Years wore on after the departure and death of poor Mungo Glen, during the which I had a sowd of prentices, good, bad, and indifferent, and who afterwards cut, and are cutting, a variety of figures in the world.
Sometimes I had two or three at a time; for the increase of business that flowed in upon me with a full stream was tremendous, enabling me--who say it that should not say it--to lay by a wheen bawbees for a sore head, or the frailties of old age.

Somehow or other, the clothes made on my shopboard came into great vogue through all Dalkeith, both for neatness of shape and nicety of workmanship; and the young journeymen of other masters did not think themselves perfected, or worthy a decent wage, till they had crooked their houghs for three months in my service.

With regard to myself, some of my acquaintances told me, that if I had gone into Edinburgh to push my fortune, I could have cut half the trade out of bread, and maybe risen, in the course of nature, to be Lord Provost himself; but I just heard them speak, and kept my wheisht.

I never was overly ambitious; and I remembered how proud Nebuchadnaazer ended with eating grass on all-fours.

Every man has a right to be the best judge of his own private matters; though, to be sure, the advice of a true friend is often more precious than rubies, and sweeter than the Balm of Gilead.
It was about the month of March, in the year of grace _anno Domini_ eighteen hundred, that the whole country trembled, like a giant ill of the ague, under the consternation of Buonaparte, and all the French vagabonds emigrating over, and landing in the Firth.