"I was a sergeant in the Black Watch, Bailie, and I was through the Crimean War--ye can see my medals; but it takes me all my time to keep the pack in hand within my ain jurisdiction; and if ye meddle wi' them outside yir jurisdiction, I tell ye, Bailie, they'll mak' a fool o' ye afore they're done w' ye in face o' all Muirtown. There's a way o' managin' them, but peety ye if ye counter them. Noo, when they broke the glass in the Count's windows, if he didna pretend that he couldna identify them and paid the cost himself! He may be French, but he's long-headed, for him and the laddies are that friendly there's naething they woudna do for him. As ye value yir peace o' mind, Bailie, and yir poseetion in Muirtown, dinna quarrel wi' the Seminary. They're fine laddies as laddies go; but for mischief, they're juist born deevils." There is a foolish streak in every man, and the Bailie went on to his doom. As the authorities of the Seminary refused to do their duty--for which he would remember them in the Council when questions of salary and holidays came up--the Bailie fell back on the police, who had their own thoughts of his policy, but dared not argue with a magistrate; and one morning an able-bodied constable appeared on the scene and informed the amazed school that he was there to prevent them playing on the Terrace. No doubt he did his duty according to his light, but neither he nor six constables could have quelled the Seminary any more than you can hold quicksilver in your hand. When he walked with stately step up and down the broad pavement before Bulldog's windows, the Seminary went up and played opposite the Bailie's house, introducing his name into conversation, with opprobrious remarks regarding the stoutness of his person, and the emptiness of his head, and finally weaving the story of his life into a verse of poetry which was composed by Speug, but is not suitable for a book of family reading. If the constable, with the fear of the magistrate before his eyes, went up to stand as a guard of honour before the Bailie's house, the school went down then to the Russian guns and held a meeting of triumph, challenging the constable to come back to the Seminary, and telling him what they would do to him. They formed a bodyguard round him some days, keeping just out of reach, and marched along with him, backward and forward; other days they chaffed and teased him till his life was a burden to him, for he had no power to arrest them, and in his heart he sympathised with them. And then, at last, being weary of the constable, the school turned its attention to the Bailie.