The business of Paul’s Work was immediately prosperous, and rapidly increased. James Ballantyne was an excellent man of business. He was also an artist in his profession, as is shown by many of his productions, and especially by the beautiful 1829 edition of Sir Walter Scott’s novels printed at his press. It is to this edition that Mr. Percy Fitzgerald makes particular reference, when he writes: “The press of the Ballantynes, under the inspiration of Sir Walter Scott, issued marvels of brilliant and effective printing, which seem to ripen with age.... There is a calm dignity, an unobtrusive harmony, in the large page and its proportions and tint, that at once excites admiration.... A more beautiful, legible, and satisfactory edition could not be well imagined than that of the long set of the Waverley Novels, published about ‘sixty years since.’ The size, paper, illustrations, and extraordinary brilliance of the type make it quite a favourite edition—indeed, the famous tales seem to read differently in this than in later editions of more show and pretence.”[9] John Ballantyne, the next of the family to James, came to Edinburgh soon after the removal to Paul’s Work, and was employed as a clerk. He is described at a later date, in the famous “Chaldee Manuscript,” published in _Blackwood’s Magazine_ of October 1817, as “John, the brother of James, a man of low stature, who giveth out merry things, and is a lover of fables from his youth up.” He was originally destined for a mercantile life, but after a brief business training in London he returned to Kelso, and remained there till 1805, when he joined his brother James in Edinburgh. Lockhart thus pictures the two brothers: “James was a short, stout, well-made man, and would have been considered a handsome one but for grotesque frowns, starts, and twistings of his features, set off by a certain mock-majesty of walk and gesture, which he had perhaps contracted from his usual companions, the emperors and tyrants of the stage. His voice in talk was grave and sonorous, and he sang well, in a fine rich bass. John’s tone in singing was a sharp treble; in conversation something between a croak and a squeak.” As a storyteller John was unrivalled, having an infinite fund of ludicrous and characteristic anecdote, which he set off with a humour endless in its variety of shades. “Scott used to call the one Aldiborontiphoscophornio; the other Rigdumfunnidos. They both entertained him; they both loved and revered him; and I believe would have shed their hearts’ blood in his service.”[10] “Fatsman” was another of Scott’s playful nicknames for James Ballantyne, as was also “Mr. Basketfill,” used by Constable, in allusion to the well-known printer Baskerville.