When our party arrived in Dunbar, where the regiment lay, after being finally approved, and the balance of my bounty paid, which was about four guineas, (after deducting necessaries,) I was conducted by the sergeant to the room where my berth was appointed. When he left me, I sat down on a form, melancholy enough. An old soldier sat down beside me; and, remarking that I looked dull, asked me where I came from, when I replied, ‘Glasgow.’ I was immediately claimed as a townsman by some of the _knowing ones_, one of whom had the Irish brogue in perfection, and another the distinguishing dialect and accent of a cockney. ‘You don’t speak like natives of Glasgow.’ said I. ‘Och! stop until you be as long from home as me,’ said Paddy, giving a wink to his comrades, ‘and you will forget both your mother-tongue and the mother that bore you.’ ‘Ha’ ye got yere boonty yet, laddie?’ said an Aberdeen man. ‘Yes,’ said I. ‘Than you’ll no want for frien’s as lang as it lasts.’ So I found; for every little attention was paid me that they could devise. One brushed my shoes, another my coat; and nothing could equal the many professions of good-will and offers of service I received. There was a competition amongst them who should be my comrade, each supporting his offer by what service he would render me, such as cleaning my accoutrements, teaching me my exercise, &c. It appeared to me that I was set up at auction to be knocked down to the highest bidder. But I paid little attention to them. My mind was taken up, thinking of my folly, and ruminating on its consequences. After holding a private consultation amongst themselves, one of them took me aside, and told me it was the usual custom for each recruit, when he joined the company, to give the men of the room he belonged to a ‘treat.’ ‘How much?’ said I, putting my hand in my pocket; for, in the passive state of mind I was then in, they would have found little difficulty in persuading me to give them all I had. ‘A guinea,’ was the reply. ‘Why didn’t you ask two?’ said an old fellow aside to the spokesman, when he saw me give the one so freely. He seemed vexed that he had not.