“I do—I do, most heedfully,” said Davie.—“For, as the sun goeth round the dial-plate in twenty-four hours, add, for the moon, fifty minutes and a half——”
“You are in the seventh heavens, man,” said his companion.
“I crave your pardon,” replied Davie.—“Let the wheel A go round in twenty-four hours—I have it—and the wheel B in twenty-four hours, fifty minutes and a half—fifty-seven being to fifty-four, as fifty-nine to twenty-four hours, fifty minutes and a half, or very nearly,—I crave your forgiveness, Master George, and heartily wish you good-even.”
“Good-even?” said Master George; “why, you have not wished me good-day yet. Come, old friend, lay by these tablets, or you will crack the inner machinery of your skull, as our friend yonder has got the outer-case of his damaged.—Good-night, quotha! I mean not to part with you so easily. I came to get my four hours' nunchion from you, man, besides a tune on the lute from my god-daughter, Mrs. Marget.”
“Good faith! I was abstracted, Master George—but you know me. Whenever I get amongst the wheels,” said Mr. Ramsay, “why, 'tis——”
“Lucky that you deal in small ones,” said his friend; as, awakened from his reveries and calculations, Ramsay led the way up a little back-stair to the first storey, occupied by his daughter and his little household.
The apprentices resumed their places in the front-shop, and relieved Sam Porter; when Jenkin said to Tunstall—“Didst see, Frank, how the old goldsmith cottoned in with his beggarly countryman? When would one of his wealth have shaken hands so courteously with a poor Englishman?—Well, I'll say that for the best of the Scots, that they will go over head and ears to serve a countryman, when they will not wet a nail of their finger to save a Southron, as they call us, from drowning. And yet Master George is but half-bred Scot neither in that respect; for I have known him do many a kind thing to the English too.”
“But hark ye, Jenkin,” said Tunstall, “I think you are but half-bred English yourself. How came you to strike on the Scotsman's side after all?”
“Why, you did so, too,” answered Vincent.
“Ay, because I saw you begin; and, besides, it is no Cumberland fashion to fall fifty upon one,” replied Tunstall.