BRODIE. You are more fortunate than you deserve. What do you say, Procurator? LAWSON. Ay is he! There is no a house in Edinburgh safe. The law is clean helpless, clean helpless! A week syne it was auld Andra Simpson’s in the Lawnmarket. Then, naething would set the catamarans but to forgather privily wi’ the Provost’s ain butler, and tak’ unto themselves the Provost’s ain plate. And the day, information was laid before me offeecially that the limmers had made infraction, _vi et clam_, into Leddy Mar’get Dalziel’s, and left her leddyship wi’ no sae muckle’s a spune to sup her parritch wi’. It’s unbelievable, it’s awful, it’s anti-christian! MARY. If you only knew them, uncle, what an example you would make! But tell me, is it not strange that men should dare such things, in the midst of a city, and nothing, nothing be known of them—nothing at all? LESLIE. Little, indeed! But we do know that there are several in the gang, and that one at least is an unrivalled workman. LAWSON. Ye’re right, sir; ye’re vera right, Mr. Leslie. It had been deponed to me offeecially that no a tradesman—no the Deacon here himsel’—could have made a cleaner job wi’ Andra Simpson’s shutters. And as for the lock o’ the bank—but that’s an auld sang. BRODIE. I think you believe too much, Procurator. Rumour’s an ignorant jade, I tell you. I’ve had occasion to see some little of their handiwork—broken cabinets, broken shutters, broken doors—and I find them bunglers. Why, I could do it better myself! LESLIE. Gad, Brodie, you and I might go into partnership. I back myself to watch outside, and I suppose you could do the work of skill within? BRODIE. An opposition company? Leslie, your mind is full of good things. Suppose we begin to-night, and give the Procurator’s house the honours of our innocence? MARY. You could do anything, you two! LAWSON. Onyway, Deacon, ye’d put your ill-gotten gains to a right use; they might come by the wind but they wouldna gang wi’ the water; and that’s aye _a solatium_, as we say. If I am to be robbit, I would like to be robbit wi’ decent folk; and no think o’ my bonnie clean siller dirling among jads and dicers. [Faith, William, the mair I think on’t, the mair I’m o’ Mr. Leslie’s mind. Come the night, or come the morn, and I’se gie ye my free permission, and lend ye a hand in at the window forbye! BRODIE. Come, come, Procurator, lead not our poor clay into temptation. (LESLIE _and_ MARY _talk apart_.) LAWSON. I’m no muckle afraid for your puir clay, as ye ca’t.] But hark i’ your ear: ye’re likely, joking apart, to be gey and sune in partnership wi’ Mr. Leslie. He and Mary are gey and pack, a body can see that. [BRODIE. ‘Daffin’ and want o’ wit’—you know the rest.