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bassador, "and am determined to set out in two or three days.” The king- saw he had committed himself, and writes, or causes to he written, to the university of Aberdeen, stating the case, and desiring the professors to put him off, or make the best of him they could. The ambassador arrives, is received with great solemnity; but soon began to enquire which of them had the honour to be professor of signs? and being told that the professor was absent in the Highlands, and would not return nobody could say when; says the ambassador, "I will wait his return, though it were twelve months.” Seeing that this would not do, and that they had to en- tertain him at a great expence all the while, they contrived a stratagem: There was one Geordy, a butcher, blind of an eye, a droll fellow, with much wit and roguery about him. He is got, told the story, and instruct- ed to be professor of signs; but not to speak on pain of death. Geordy undertakes it —The ambassador is now told that the profes- sor of signs would be at home next day, at which he rejoiced greatly. Geordy is gowned, wigged, and placed in a chair of state, in a room of the college, all the profes- sors and the ambassador being in an adjoin- ing room. The ambassador is now shown in to Geordy’s room, and left to converse with him as well as he could, the whole of the professors
