His orphan condition excited the compassion of respectable matrons, but their efforts to tend him in his loneliness were not always successful, nor even appreciated to the full by the young McGuffie. When Mrs. Dowbiggin, who had a deep interest in what was called the "work among children," and who got her cabs from McGuffie's stable, took pity on Peter's unprotected childhood, and invited him to play with her boys, who were a head taller and paragons of excellence, the result was unfortunate, and afforded Mrs. Dowbiggin the text for many an exhortation. Peter was brought back to the parental mansion by Dr. Dowbiggin's beadle within an hour, and received a cordial welcome from a congregation of grooms, to whom he related his experiences at the Manse with much detail and agreeable humour. During the brief space at his disposal he had put every toy of the Dowbiggins' in a thorough state of repair, and had blacked their innocent faces with burnt cork so that their mother did not recognise her children. He had also taught them a negro melody of a very taking description, and had reinforced their vocabulary with the very cream of the stable. From that day Mrs. Dowbiggin warned the mothers of Muirtown against allowing their boys to associate with Speug, and Speug could never see her pass on the street without an expression of open delight. When Mr. McGuffie senior brought his son, being then ten years old, to the Seminary for admittance, it was a chance that he was not refused and that we did not miss our future champion. Mr. McGuffie's profession and reputation were a stumbling-block to the rector, who was a man of austere countenance and strict habits of life, and Peter himself was a very odd-looking piece of humanity and had already established his own record. He was under-sized and of exceptional breadth, almost flat in countenance, and with beady black eyes which on occasion lit up his face as when one illuminates the front of a house, but the occasions were rarely those which would commend themselves to the headmaster of a public school. How the dealer in horses removed the rector's difficulties was never accurately known, but boys passing the door of the rector's retiring-room when he was closeted with Mr. McGuffie overheard scraps of the conversation, and Muirtown was able to understand the situation. It was understood that in a conflict of words the rector, an absent-minded scholar of shrinking manner, was not likely to come off best, and it is certain that the head of the school ever afterwards referred to Mr. McGuffie as "a man of great resolution of character and endowed with the gift of forcible speech." As regards the son, his affectionate father gave him some brief directions before leaving, and in the presence of his fellow-scholars, of which this only was overheard, and seemed, indeed, to be the sum and substance: "Never give in, ye de'il's buckie." With these inspiriting words Mr. McGuffie