launched out as cheese-buyer in opposition to Gourlay. It "occurred" to him also (things were always occurring to Wilson) that the "Scotch cuddy" business had as fine a chance in "Barbie and surrounding neighbourhood" as ever it had in North and Middle England. The "Scotch cuddy" is so called because he is a beast of burden, and not from the nature of his wits. He is a travelling packman, who infests communities of working-men, and disposes of his goods on the credit system, receiving payment in instalments. You go into a working-man's house (when he is away from home for preference), and laying a swatch of cloth across his wife's knee, "What do you think of that, mistress?" you inquire, watching the effect keenly. Instantly all her covetous heart is in her eye, and, thinks she to herself, "Oh, but John would look well in that at the kirk on Sunday!" She has no ready money, and would never have the cheek to go into a draper's and order the suit; but when she sees it lying there across her knee, she just cannot resist it. (And fine you knew that when you clinked it down before her!) Now that the goods are in the house, she cannot bear to let them out the door again. But she hints a scarcity of cash. "Tut, woman!" quoth you, bounteous and kind, "there's no obstacle in _that_! You can pay me in instalments!" How much would the instalments be, she inquires. "Oh, a mere trifle--half a crown a week, say." She hesitates and hankers. "John's Sunday coat's getting quite shabby, so it is, and Tam Macalister has a new suit, she was noticing--the Macalisters are always flaunting in their braws! And, there's that Paisley shawl for herself, too; eh, but they would be the canty pair, cocking down the road on Sunday in _that_ rig! they would take the licht frae Meg Macalister's een--thae Macalisters are always so en-vy-fu'!" Love, vanity, covetousness, present opportunity, are all at work upon the poor body. She succumbs. But the half-crown weekly payments have a habit of lengthening themselves out till the packman has made fifty per cent. by the business. And why not? a man must have some interest on his money! Then there's the risk of bad debts, too--that falls to be considered. But there was little risk of bad debts when Wilson took to cloth-distributing. For success in that game depends on pertinacity in pursuit of your victim, and Wilson was the man for that. He was jogging home from Brigabee, where he had been distributing groceries at a score of wee houses, when there flashed on his mind a whole scheme for cloth-distribution on a large scale; for mining villages were clustering in about Barbie by this time, and he saw his way to a big thing.