“Oh, come now, Tim, don’t try that with me; play ‘the daft laddie’ with somebody else,” I laughingly returned. “What was the article he sold or left with you?”
“A Bible—a Family Bible——”
“Good gracious!”
“Ay, you may say that. Bibles is a drug in the market; and to expect us to keep one when we had a chance to sell it! Family Bibles is out of fashion now—can’t get the price of the binding for them—and the last we had lay for a year in the windy.”
“And so you sold this one?” I said quietly, having got time to think during Tim’s speech. “Who was the buyer?”
“Blest if I can tell—seemed a sort of ‘revival,’” by which Tim meant a “revivalist,” a name given to a sect of religious enthusiasts then newly started in Edinburgh. “Was it you who sold the Bible to him?”
“Yes, that’s why that man kicked up the row. He says my father knew it wasn’t to be sold. I wasn’t to know that, and I was glad to get rid of it. The ‘revival’ was near not taking it because the Family Register was cut out—tried to beat me down two shillings for that. Religious folks are always the biggest screws.”
“You must be terribly religious then,” I calmly remarked to Tim, for I knew that that youthful precocity could drive a bargain which would have drawn a blush to the cheeks of the biggest rogue of a broker who ever bartered and sold.
Tim grinned delightedly at the tribute to his genius.
“Would you know the ‘revival’ again?” I asked, beginning to think I was fairly done at last.