It was Johnson's humor to be anti-Scottish. He objected theoretically to haggis, though he ate a good plateful of it.
"What do you think o' the haggis?" asked the hospitable old lady, at whose table he was dining, seeing that he partook so plentifully of it.
"Humph!" he replied, with his mouth full, "it's very good food for hogs!"
"Then let me help you to some mair o' 't," said the lady, helping him bountifully.
Helping Business
Prof. James Gregory, perhaps the most celebrated physician of his day, but who, in popular estimation, is dolefully remembered as the inventor of a nauseous compound known as Gregory's Mixture. He was a tall and very handsome man, and stately and grave in all his manners, but, withal, with a touch of Scotch humor in him. One evening, walking home from the university, he came upon a street row or bicker, a sort of town-and-gown-riot very common in those days. Observing a boy systematically engaged in breaking windows, he seized him, and inquired, in the sternest voice, what he did that for.
"Oh," was the reply, "my master's a glazier, and I'm trying to help business."
"Indeed. Very proper; very proper, my boy," Dr. Gregory answered, and, as he proceeded to maul him well with his cane, "you see I must follow your example. I'm a doctor, and must help business a little." And with that, he gave a few finishing whacks to the witty youth, and went off chuckling at having turned the tables on the glazier's apprentice.
Sandy Wood's Proposal of Marriage