As drinking was _the_ staple amusement of old Edinburgh, “the Ladies” was naturally the most popular toast: a stock one was, “All absent friends, all ships at sea, and the auld pier at Leith.” This last was not so ridiculous as might be supposed, for it was famous in Scott’s song, _teste_ the only Robin, to name but him, and Scots law, for it was one of the stock places at which fugitives were cited, as witness godly Mr. Alexander Peden himself. The toastmakers were hard put to it sometimes for sentiments. A well-known story relates how one unfortunate gentleman could think of nothing better than “the reflection of the mune on the calm bosom o’ the lake.” As absurd is the story of the antiquary who sat at his potations in a tavern in the old Post Office Close on the night of 8th February 1787. Suddenly he burst into tears; he had just remembered on that very day “twa hunner year syne Queen Mary was beheaded.” His plight was scarce so bad as that of the shadow or hanger-on of Driver clerk to the famous Andrew Crosbie, otherwise Counsellor Pleydell. The name of this satellite was Patrick Nimmo. He was once mistaken, when found dead drunk in the morning after the King’s birthday, for the effigy of Johnnie Wilkes which had been so loyally and thoroughly kicked about by the mob on the previous evening. One of his cronies wrote or rather spoke his epitaph in this fashion: “Lord, is he dead at last! Weel, that’s strange indeed. I drank sax half mutchkins wi’ him doun at the Hens only three nichts syn! Bring us a biscuit wi’ the next gill, mistress. Rab was aye fond o’ bakes.” Of course the scene was a tavern, and the memory of poor Rob was at least an excuse for another dram. This is not very genial merry-making, but geniality is never the characteristic note of Scots humour from the earliest times. In 1575 the Regent Morton kept a fool named Patrick Bonney, who, seeing his master pestered by a crowd of beggars, advised him to throw them all into one fire. Even Morton was horrified. “Oh,” said the jester coolly, “if all these poor people were burned you would soon make more poor people out of the rich.” No wonder the old-time fools were frequently whipped. The precentor and the beadle were in some ways successors of the old-time fool. [Illustration: WILLIAM SMELLIE, From an Engraving after George Watson] Thomas Neil fulfilled the first office in old Greyfriars’ in the time of Erskine and Robertson. He could turn out a very passable coffin, and did some small business that way which made him look forward to the decease of friends with a not unmixed sorrow. “Hech, man, but ye smell sair o’ earth,” was his cheerful greeting to a sick friend. One forenoon the then Nisbet of Dirleton met him in the High Street rather tipsy. Even the dissipation of old Edinburgh had its laws, and the country gentleman pointed out that the precentor’s position made such conduct improper. “I just tak’ it when I can get it,” said Neil, with a leer.