"I am sure if you were there, I never saw you before," said the second speaker; "But I dinna ken what I am saying; for the truth is I dinna comprehend this." With that they again gazed at each other, and looked over their shoulders, as if they would not have cared to have fled from one another's presence. With every pair the scene was much the same. Tam was so much astonished that he turned to his second self, cowered down, leaning his hands upon his knees, and made a staunch point at him. The other took precisely the same posture, so that their long noses almost met. The maid, the poet, and the boy screamed with laughter. Both of the Tams laughed too, so that they very much resembled an ideot looking at himself in a glass. "Friend, I canna say but ye're very like me," said Gibbie to his partner; "But, though nane o' us be great beauties, ye look rather the warst o' the twae." "It brings me a-mind o' a story I hae heard my mother tell," said the other, "of a lady and her twa Blackamores"-- "What the deil man!" exclaimed the first; "Did your mother tell that story too?" "Ay; wha else but she tauld it? I say my mother, auld Effy Blakely of the Peatstacknowe." "Eh?--She your mother? It is gayan queer if we be baith ane after a'! for I never had a billy." The two Gibbies then both began to tell stories, which each claimed as originally his, so that the perplexity still increased. Nor was it better when the parties began to mix and address each other. All spoke of themselves as the right and proper persons, and of the others as beings in their likenesses, and the most complete uncertainty prevailed. But, just as the novelty and interest of the drama began to subside, Michael, by a wave of his hand annihilated the three additional personages, and all remained as it was before the grand exhibition commenced, save that our group had got a new topic of conversation and merriment. "Primate of Douay, so celebrated for thy mighty enchantments, how thinkest thou of this?" said the Master. "That thou hast done what no man could have done beside," said the friar; "and that thy power even surpasseth that of the magicians of Egypt, and of those of the countries in the lands of the east. But in one thing my power is even as thy power. Dost thou know that I could have prevented thy charm, and put a period to thy enchantment at my will and pleasure?" "It is not the power of prevention that we are trying," said the Master. "Suffer my servants to do their work, as I shall suffer thine, and we shall then see who are most punctually obeyed, and who shall perform the greatest works. Only, if I prevail in all things, you will surely have the generosity to acknowledge that my master is greater than thine?"