The brandy-balls were now flaming up the chimney, and fast dissolving into their elements with a sickly smell and a fizzling noise.
"Tell us what ye hae against us, Sal; oot wi' it!" said Cleaver's boy, who recognised the great truth that with a woman it is always better to be at the bottom of what she knows, and that at once.
"I'm no gaun to keep company wi' ony man that gangs on the nicht shift!" cried Sal, turning with the needles in her hand and stamping her foot. "I'll let ye ken that Sal Mackay thinks mair o' hersel' than that. I hae some pride!"
The murder was out. But poor James, who thought that he had done a fine thing in attaining promotion, knew not what to reply.
"And what differ does that make, Sal?" asked Cleaver's boy in astonishment.
"What differ does it make? Hear to the cuddy! Differ—juist this differ, that ye'll walk oot wi' some dafter lass than Sal Mackay. I hae mair respect for mysel' than to bemean mysel' to gang wi' a nicht-shift man!"
"But," said James, "I get far better pay. Think o' that, Sal!"
"I'm no carin' for that, when I canna be there when ye spend it," said the mercenary Sal, with, however, commendable straightforwardness.
"But I fetched ye the brandy-balls, Sal," persisted the once proud boy of Cleaver's.
"Brandy-balls! That for your brandy-balls!" cried Sal, pointing to the fireplace, in which a little blue flame was still burning, at the spot where the Tam Luke's sweetmeats had been so irregularly consumed. "D'ye think that Sal Mackay is to be dependent every nicht on a chap that has to gang on duty at half-past seven?——"