"I fancy, callant, we maun let that flee stick to the wa'," said George; and sewed away, and sewed away, and got the boots finished next day at twelve o'clock. Now, thought he to himself, I have thirty shillings by this bargain, and so I'll treat our magistrates to a hearty glass this afternoon; I hae muckle need o' a slockening, and the Selkirk bailies never fail a friend.--George put his hand into his pocket to clink his two gold guineas; but never a guinea was in George's pocket, nor plack either! His countenance changed, and fell so much, that the apprentice noticed it, and suspected the cause; but George would confess nothing, though, in his own mind, he strongly suspected the Duke of Northumberland of the theft, _alias_, the fat gentleman with the fair curled hair, and the red cheeks hanging over his stock. George went away up among his brethren of the awl in the Back Row, and called on them every one; but he soon perceived, from their blank looks, and their disinclination to drink that night, that they were all in the same predicament with himself. The fat gentleman with the curled hair had visited every one of them, and got measure for a pair of ten-guinea boots, but had not paid any of them; and, somehow or other, every man had lost the price of the boots which he had received in the morning. Whom to blame for this, nobody knew; for the whole day over, and a good part of the night, from the time the proclamation was made, the Back Row of Selkirk was like a cried fair; all the idle people in the town and the country about were there, wondering after the man who had raised such a demand for boots. After all, the Souters of Selkirk were left neither richer nor poorer than they were at the beginning, but every one of them had been four times called a _Souter_ to his face,--a title of great obloquy in that town, although the one of all others that the townsmen ought to be proud of. And it is curious that they are proud of it when used collectively; but apply it to any of them as a term of reproach, and you had better call him the worst name under heaven. This was the truth of the story; and the feat was performed by the late Duke of Queensberry, when Earl of March, and two English noblemen then on a tour through this country. Every one of them gained his bet, through the simplicity of the honest Souters; but certainly the last had a difficult part to play, having staked two hundred guineas that he would take all the money from the Souters that they had received from the gentleman in the morning, and call every one of them _Souter_ to his face. He got the price entire from every one, save Thomas Inglis, who had drunk the half of his before he got to him; but this being proved, the English gentleman won.