Evidently, too, he was ill at ease about other matters besides his son. He was looking out of the corners of his eyes, first at the skinless cast on the chimney-piece, then at the crucified books hanging over his head, as if he considered them not altogether safe companions, and rather expected something "uncanny" to lay hold of him from behind--a process which involved the most horrible contortions of visage, as he carefully abstained from stirring a muscle of his neck or body, but sat bolt upright, his elbows pinned to his sides, and his knees as close together as his stomach would permit, like a huge corpulent Egyptian Memnon--the most ludicrous contrast to the little old man opposite, twisted up together in his Joseph's coat, like some wizard magician in the stories which I was reading. A curious pair of "poles" the two made; the mesothet whereof, by no means a _"punctum indifferens,"_ but a true connecting spiritual idea, stood on the table--in the whisky-bottle. Farmer Porter was evidently big with some great thought, and had all a true poet's bashfulness about publishing the fruit of his creative genius. He looked round again at the skinless man, the caricatures, the books; and, as his eye wandered from pile to pile, and shelf to shelf, his face brightened, and he seemed to gain courage. Solemnly he put his hat on his knees, and began solemnly brushing it with his cuff. Then he saw me watching him, and stopped. Then he put his pipe solemnly on the hob, and cleared his throat for action, while I buried my face in the book. "Them's a sight o' larned beuks, Muster Mackaye?" "Humph!" "Yow maun ha' got a deal o' scholarship among they, noo?" "Humph!" "Dee yow think, noo, yow could find out my boy out of un, by any ways o' conjuring like?" "By what?" "Conjuring--to strike a perpendicular, noo, or say the Lord's Prayer backwards?" "Wadna ye prefer a meeracle or twa?" asked Sandy, after a long pull at the whisky-toddy. "Or a few efreets?" added I. "Whatsoever you likes, gentlemen. You're best judges, to be sure," answered Farmer Porter, in an awed and helpless voice.