“Not before the eyes of one like you,” said the man in black.

“It is getting late,” said I; “I care not for perquisites.”

“So you will not join us?” said the man in black.

“You have had my answer,” said I.

“If I belong to Rome,” said the man in black, “why should not you?”

“I may be a poor tinker,” said I; “but I may never have undergone what you have.  You remember, perhaps, the fable of the fox who had lost his tail?”

The man in black winced, but almost immediately recovering himself, he said, “Well, we can do without you:  we are sure of winning.”

“It is not the part of wise people,” said I, “to make sure of the battle before it is fought:  there’s the landlord of the public-house, who made sure that his cocks would win, yet the cocks lost the main, and the landlord is little better than a bankrupt.”

“People very different from the landlord,” said the man in black, “both in intellect and station, think we shall surely win; there are clever machinators among us who have no doubt of our success.”

“Well,” said I, “I will set the landlord aside, and will adduce one who was in every point a very different person from the landlord, both in understanding and station; he was very fond of laying schemes, and, indeed, many of them turned out successful.  His last and darling one, however, miscarried, notwithstanding that by his calculations he had persuaded himself that there was no possibility of its failing—­the person that I allude to was old Fraser . . .”

“Who?” said the man in black, giving a start, and letting his glass fall.

“Old Fraser, of Lovat,” said I, “the prince of all conspirators and machinators; he made sure of placing the Pretender on the throne of these realms.  ‘I can bring into the field so many men,’ said he; ’my son-in-law, Cluny, so many, and likewise my cousin, and my good friend;’ then speaking of those on whom the government reckoned for support he would say, ’So-and-so is lukewarm; this person is ruled by his wife, who is with us; the clergy are anything but hostile to us; and as for the soldiers and sailors, half are disaffected to King George, and the rest cowards.’  Yet when things came to a trial, this person whom he had calculated upon to join the Pretender did not stir from his home, another joined the hostile ranks, the presumed cowards turned out heroes, and those whom he thought heroes ran away like lusty fellows at Culloden; in a word, he found himself utterly mistaken, and in nothing more than himself; he thought he was a hero, and proved himself nothing more than an old fox; he got up a hollow tree, didn’t he, just like a fox?

   “‘L’ opere sue non furon leonine, ma di volpe.’” {237}