Grace was said by the Professor of Divinity, in a macaronic Latin, which I could by no means follow, only I could hear it rhymed, and I guessed it to be more witty than reverent.  After which the Senatus Academicus sat down to rough plenty in the shape of rizzar’d haddocks and mustard, a sheep’s head, a haggis, and other delicacies of Scotland.  The dinner was washed down with brown stout in bottle, and as soon as the cloth was removed, glasses, boiling water, sugar, and whisky were set out for the manufacture of toddy.  I played a good knife and fork, did not shun the bowl, and took part, so far as I was able, in the continual fire of pleasantry with which the meal was seasoned.  Greatly daring, I ventured, before all these Scotsmen, to tell Sim’s Tale of Tweedie’s dog; and I was held to have done such extraordinary justice to the dialect, ‘for a Southron,’ that I was immediately voted into the Chair of Scots, and became, from that moment, a full member of the University of Cramond.  A little after, I found myself entertaining them with a song; and a little after—­perhaps a little in consequence—­it occurred to me that I had had enough, and would be very well inspired to take French leave.  It was not difficult to manage, for it was nobody’s business to observe my movements, and conviviality had banished suspicion.

I got easily forth of the chamber, which reverberated with the voices of these merry and learned gentlemen, and breathed a long breath.  I had passed an agreeable afternoon and evening, and I had apparently escaped scot free.  Alas! when I looked into the kitchen, there was my monkey, drunk as a lord, toppling on the edge of the dresser, and performing on the flageolet to an audience of the house lasses and some neighbouring ploughmen.

I routed him promptly from his perch, stuck his hat on, put his instrument in his pocket, and set off with him for Edinburgh.

His limbs were of paper, his mind quite in abeyance; I must uphold and guide him, prevent his frantic dives, and set him continually on his legs again.  At first he sang wildly, with occasional outbursts of causeless laughter.  Gradually an inarticulate melancholy succeeded; he wept gently at times; would stop in the middle of the road, say firmly ‘No, no, no,’ and then fall on his back:  or else address me solemnly as ‘M’lord’ and fall on his face by way of variety.  I am afraid I was not always so gentle with the little pig as I might have been, but really the position was unbearable.  We made no headway at all, and I suppose we were scarce gotten a mile away from Cramond, when the whole Senatus Academicus was heard hailing, and doubling the pace to overtake its.