His acquaintance with the young wigmaker--whose sign of the 'Mercury,' situate in the High Street, or, as the poet himself writes, 'on Edinburgh's Street the sun-side,' was almost immediately opposite Niddry's Wynd, and at the head of Halkerston's Wynd, and within sixty yards of the Tron Church--had originated in the weekly visits paid by him to Allan's shop for the purpose of getting his wig dressed. While waiting until this important item in an eighteenth-century gentleman's toilet was accomplished, he had enjoyed many a 'crack' with the young craftsman, so shrewd, so witty, so genial, yet withal so industrious. The man of pleas and precepts discovered him of powder and perukes to be as deeply interested and, in good sooth, as deeply versed in the literature of his own land as the lawyer himself. Chance acquaintance gradually ripened, on both sides, into cordial esteem. James Ross invited Ramsay to visit him at his house, and there the young _perruquier_ beheld his fate in Christian, or Kirsty, Ross. If Allan were fascinated by Kirsty's rare beauty and piquant _espièglerie_, by her sweet imperiousness and the subtle charm of her refined femininity, exercised on a nature whose previous experience of the sex had been limited to the bare-legged Amazons of Leadhills or the rosy-cheeked ministering Hebes, whom the high wages of domestic service attracted to town; she, in turn, was no less captivated by the manly, self-possessed demeanour, and the ingratiating qualities, both social and intellectual, of her father's guest. If he had mingled too little with society for his manners to be tinged with the polish of the _débonnair_ gallant, his natural good-breeding and ready tact, united, it must be confessed, to a not inconsiderable spice of vanity, doubtless prevented any lapse into those nervous _gaucheries_ wherewith a youth's first appearance in good society is often accompanied. Allan has drawn with truth and graphic power his own portrait as he appeared at this time-- '_Imprimis_--then for tallness I Am five feet and four inches high; A black-a-vic'd, snod, dapper fellow, Nor lean, nor overlaid wi' tallow; With phiz of a Morocco cut, Resembling a late man of wit, Auld-gabbet Spec, who was so cunning To be a dummie ten years running. Then for the fabric of my mind, 'Tis more to mirth than grief inclined; I rather choose to laugh at folly Than show dislike by melancholy: Well judging a sour heavy face Is not the truest mark of grace.'