As I did not propose to enter upon business until I had looked a little about me—seen what had been doing and what was to be done—I happened to be in a humour to meet the bailie in his own way when he came next morning.

“Ye’el be weel pleased, Mr. Todd,” said he, “to see what a grand prospering place this is. It's coining money for ye when ye sleep: ye have nothing to do but to gallant away to London town, and court blithe young widows, and come home and find thousands of dollars, begetting swarms of others, in the bank for you. But although it's no’ my fortune to lead captive captivity, I have yet not been without a share of luck—that I must acknowledge with thankfulness—but I stand in need of a hand with a weighty purse, like yours, to bring it to a bearing.”

“Then it's true,” cried I, a good deal amazed to hear this, “that you have discovered a silver mine in the wood?”

“What would ye think,” replied he, with a satisfied smile, “if it were a gold one? But whether mines be of silver or of gold, money is wanted to work them; and after all, they are precarious commodities, as some folks in London begin to find, to their impoverishment. No, Mr. Todd; to speak without delusion, what I have found is better than a mine. Silver and gold have I none, but I have much better.”

The bailie alarmed me a little by this, and I placed myself instantly on my guard, dreading he was at his hooky-crookies again. However, he continued, allowing for his oddity, seemingly to speak to the purpose.

“You know this is an unknown country; and therefore, as we are as ignorant of the treasures in the bowels of the earth as of the riches in the bottom of the sea, it requires no great skill to make a discovery by an accident. We have all heard of a cock that found a precious stone on a midden; well, I’m a cock, and just with as little sagacity as any other cock, maybe I have found a precious stone too?”