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It was well known that the affair described was a real one that the Willie who gave the entertainment was Mr William Nicol, a master in the High School of Edinburgh Rab, the poet himself and Allan, a certain Mr Masterton, likewise of the Edinburgh High School: three merry-hearted men, of remarkable talents and many other good properties, but who, unfortunately, were all of them too liable to the seductions of the 'barley-bree. That such was the scene, and such the actors, we had learned from Burns himself, who thus annotated the song in a musical collection: 'This air is Masterton's; the song mine.
By eight o'clock, however, he was merry with the barley-bree, and making a butt of himself to amuse the company. He was not quick-witted enough to banter a comrade readily, nor hardy enough to essay it unprovoked; on the other hand, his swaggering love of notice impelled him to some form of talk that would attract attention.
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