For a good while Jock continued to do business with Nelly Bathgate, unannoyed, as the honest dame herself, by any other grocery shop; and indeed how there could be such a thing as another grocery shop in the whole world besides Nelly’s, was quite incomprehensible to Jock. But at length the distracting object arose. A larger shop than Nelly’s, with larger windows, and a larger sign-board, was opened; the proprietor had a son in Edinburgh with a great wholesale grocer in Nicolson Street; and was supplied with a great quantity of goods, at cheap prices, of a more flashy nature than any that had ever before been dreamt of, smelt, or eaten in the village. Here a strange grocery article, called pearl ashes, was sold; and being the first time that such a thing was ever heard of, Innerleithen was just in a ferment about it. Jock was strongly tempted to give his custom, or rather the custom of his employers, to this shop; for really Nelly’s customary _snap_ was growing stale upon his appetite, and he longed to taste the comfits of the new establishment. This Nelly saw and appreciated; and, to prevent the defection she feared, Jock’s allowance was forthwith doubled, and, moreover, occasionally varied by a guerdon of a sweeter sort. But still Jock hankered after the sweets of that strange forbidden shop; and, as he passed towards Nelly’s, after a long hungry journey, could almost have wished himself transformed into one of those yellow bees which buzzed about in noisy enjoyment within the window and show-glasses of the new grocer,—creatures which, to his mind, appeared to pass the most delightful and enviable life. It is certainly much to Jock’s credit, that, even under all these temptations, and though he had frequently a whole sixpence to dispose of in eight or ten different small articles, and, no less, though he had no security engaged for intromissions, so that the whole business was nothing but a question of character,—yea, in not so much as a farthing was he ever found wanting.