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and the murdering loon had stolen it and
put in a bottle of poison instead of it. Lep-
er took to his heels, but was pursued and
carried before a justice of the peace, where
he told all he had done, which made the
justice laugh heartily at the joke; and the
tailor’s wife was well purged from her feign-
ed sickness, laziness, and cursed ill nature;
for always when she began to curl her nose
for the future, the tailor had no more to say,
but Maggy mind the bottle.
Leper was working with a master-tailor
in Glasgow, who hungered his men; and
one morning, just when breakfast was set
on the table, in comes a gentleman to try
on a suit of clothes; the master being
obliged to rise desired the lads to say the
grace themselves. Every one refused it,
and put it to his neighbour, till Leper un-
dertook it, and said with an audible voice,
that the stranger gentleman might over-
hear him as follows:—--‘Och, hoch! we are
a parcel of poor beastly bodies, and we are
as beastly minded; if we do not work we
get nothing to eat; yet we are always eat-
ing and always fretting; singing and half
starving is like to be our fortune; scartings
and scrapings are the most of our mouth-
fuls. We would fain thank thee for our
benefactors are not worthy the acknow-
ledging;—--hey, Amen.’ The gentleman
