"Ye should be ashamed of yourself," and Tinkler Tam, standing out from the midst of the crowd, and sitting as it were upon the bench sentenced the Bailie in the dock. "It's a fine business to be playing tricks on the poor folk o' Muirtown, wilin' them from their work to waste their time at your shop-door and sendin' them awa' empty-handed. If it had been the first o' April, and ye had been a laddie, I wouldna hev said much aboot it; but at your age, and you a magistrate, to play sic a trick, it's perfectly disgraceful. Ye ought to get a month's hard labour, but aye thing's sure, ye'll no long be a Bailie o' Muirtown. It was fearsome to hear ye askin' London John who gave him the shillin' when he describit ye juist as ye are standing; then the puir body, when ye threatened him, brought in the lassie. Man, though ye're a Bailie and I'm naething but Tinkler Tam, I would scorn to make use of a poor natural that hasna his wits, juist to feed my vanity and gither a crowd round my shop." Then the crowd united in three long groans, and possibly might have shown their indignation in a still more pronounced form, but the police, being still further reinforced, drove them along the streets, while the Bailie hid himself in the recesses of his shop. Three minutes later Speug sauntered into the shop with Howieson and Bauldie, and demanded a pennyworth of peppermint drops. He also remarked to Jock, as they were being folded up, "If there be as mony o' the Bailie's friends callin' at the shop on Monday, I doubt the police will no be able to spare a constable to keep order on the Terrace." And as a matter of fact the offensive patrol was withdrawn, and the Seminary resumed possession of the debatable ground. THE FALL OF GOLIATH XIII