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The first thing that we then did was to send the town-officers, who were waiting on as usual for the dribbles of the bottles and the leavings in the bowls, to bring our nightcaps, but I trow few were so lucky as me, for I had a spare wig at home, which Mrs Pawkie, my wife, a most considerate woman, sent to me; so that I was, in a manner, to all visibility, none the worse of the ploy; but the rest of the council were perfect oddities within their wigs, and the sorest thing of all was, that the exploit of burning the wigs had got wind; so that, when we left the council-room, there was a great congregation of funny weans and misleart trades' lads assembled before the tolbooth, shouting, and like as if they were out of the body with daffing, to see so many of the heads of the town in their night-caps, and no, maybe, just so solid at the time as could have been wished.

He felt that Frarnie was not very sympathetic, that her large white face seldom sparkled with much intelligence, that she would make but a dull companion; but, for all that, she would be, he knew, an excellent housewife: she would bring a house with her too; and when a man is married, and has half a dozen children tumbling round him, there is entertainment enough for him, and it is another bond between him and the wife he did not love too well at first; and if she were his, his would be the Sabrina also, and when the Sabrina's days were over perhaps a great East Indiaman, and with that the respect and deference of all his townsmen: court would be paid to him, his words would be words of weight, he would have a voice in the selection of town-officers, he would roll up money in the bank, and some day he should be master of the great Maurice mansion and the gardens and grapehouses.

Having had this early intimation of the doctor's removal to a better world, on the Sabbath morning when I went to join the magistrates in the council-chamber, as the usage is to go to the laft, with the town-officers carrying their halberts before us, according to the ancient custom of all royal burghs, my mind was in a degree prepared to speak to them anent the successor.

Nigel and his servant are both clothed in red, the livery of the Oliphaunt family in which, to this day, the town-officers of Perth are clothed, there being an old charter, granting to the Oliphaunt family, the privilege of dressing the public officers of Perth in their livery. The Duke of Buckingham is in all respects equal in magnificence of dress to the King or the Prince.