as you’ve been doing;’ and, putting his hand into his pocket, added, ‘There’s half-a-crown between you.’ Many similar anecdotes might be told. He liked smart, active workmen; but he did not willingly drive or unduly press any one. He would at once rebuke any of his employés if he considered they deserved it; but if afterwards he found he had acted hastily or wrongly, he would apologize, even to the humblest worker, and almost invariably with the apology there came a gift.” It is not surprising that the relations between such an employer and his workmen were something closer than those of the mere hireling. The workmen who had shared in his first efforts in the Castle Hill establishment followed him to Hope Park. Some of them, by their fidelity and skill, contributed to the success of later years; and the veteran survivors of that original staff were regarded by William Nelson to the last as objects of exceptional favour. Among those who thus migrated from the Castle Hill to Hope Park, one claims special attention as a relic of the original Bowhead establishment. James Peters has already been named. He was a man of good education, and, what was rare in his day, had a familiar knowledge of the French language. He was, moreover, a devout Presbyterian of the early type, eschewing the Covenanting exclusiveness of his old master, and holding faithfully to the National Kirk. His familiarity with the Scriptures was so great that he was accredited with knowing the entire New Testament by heart, and quoting familiarly from much of the Old Testament. He had been the trusted clerk, commercial traveller, and man of all work: the entire staff for a time of the bookselling business under the elder _régime_; and as the cautious ventures of its founder gave way to the comprehensive schemes of a younger generation, he watched their operations with many misgivings. Old Peters would have furnished a study for Sir Walter Scott fit to have ranked alongside of his Owen and Caleb Balderstone. He moved in all things with the regularity of clockwork, and sternly resented in others the slightest deviation from orderly business procedure or punctuality as to time. Mr. Duncan Keith sums up his own early recollections of him with the remark that “even John Munro, the beadle of Mr. Goold the Covenanting minister’s kirk, stood in awe of him.” One day, contrary to all precedent, he asked leave to go away a little earlier than the usual closing hour. He reappeared next morning, and, addressing William, said, “I wish you would tell your father I got married yesterday.” On inquiry, he stated that he had just wedded the elderly dame with whom he lodged. “It will be cheaper,” he said; “and we’ll get on weel enough thegither. We hae been lang used to each other.” When in early days the plan of book sales was in vogue, he was intrusted with the carrying out of one of the ventures; but his ideas of orderly procedure were wholly at variance with the novel experiment.