“What for should not I turn my coat, for luck, if you turn your chair?” says he. “But if you are not preceesely satisfied, I will be proud to step outside with you.” I answered that we were not in a Highland wilderness, and that if no malice were meant no affront was taken. We continued at the game till, though deprived of my mirror, I had won some 500 Fredericks. On this he rose, saying, “Sir, in this purse you will find the exact sum that I am owing you, and I will call for my empty sporran the morn. It was Rob Roy’s before it was mine.” Therewith he laid on the table a sort of goatskin pouch, such as Highlanders gird about their loins, and marched forth. I set to work at opening his pouch, that was fastened by a spring and button, seeming easy enough of access. But I had scarce pressed the button when lo! a flash, a pistol shot, and my right hand is grazed with a bullet that flew out of the bag. This Highlander of the Devil had some mechanism in his purse that discharged a small steel pistol when unwarily opened. My hand is but slightly wounded, yet I cannot hold my sword, nor hath my search brought me any news of Alan Breck. He has vanished like an emissary of the Devil or the Pretender, as I doubt not he is. But I will have his blood, if he is not one of their Scotch fairies.—Your loving Nephew, REDMOND BARRY, OF BALLYBARRY. P.S.—The Fredericks were in the bag, all told. IV. _From Mrs. Gamp to Mrs. Prig_. Mrs. Gamp nurses an old friend who is under a singular delusion. Todgers’s. MY PRECIOUS BETSY,—Which when last we parted it was not as I could wish, but bearing malice in our hearts. But, as often and often Mrs. Harris have said it before me, with the tears in her angel eyes—one of them having a slight cast from an accident with the moderator lamp, Harris being quick in his temper—often and often have she said to me: “Ah, Sairey, the quarrels of friends is affection’s best restorer.” And good reason to know it she have, with a husband as was ever true, and never gave her no cause to form the wish to pizen them as has good looks, but, for I will not deceive you, ready with his hands.