Bailie M'Lucre, as I have already intimated, was naturally a greedy body,
and not being content with the profits of his potatoe rig, soon after the
election he set up as an o'er-sea merchant, buying beef and corn by
agency in Ireland, and having the same sent to the Glasgow market. For
some time, this traffic yielded him a surprising advantage; but the
summer does not endure the whole year round, nor was his prosperity
ordained to be of a continuance. One mishap befell him after another;
cargoes of his corn heated in the vessels, because he would not sell at a
losing price, and so entirely perished; and merchants broke, that were in
his debt large sums for his beef and provisions. In short, in the course
of the third year from the time of the election, he was rookit of every
plack he had in the world, and was obligated to take the benefit of the
divor's bill, soon after which he went suddenly away from the town, on
the pretence of going into Edinburgh, on some business of legality with
his wife's brother, with whom he had entered into a plea concerning the
moiety of a steading at the town-head. But he did not stop on any such
concern there; on the contrary, he was off, and up to London in a trader
from Leith, to try if he could get a post in the government by the aid of
the nabob, our member; who, by all accounts, was hand and glove with the
king's ministers. The upshot of this journey to London was very comical;
and when the bailie afterwards came back, and him and me were again on
terms of visitation, many a jocose night we spent over the story of the
same; for the bailie was a kittle hand at a bowl of toddy; and his
adventure was so droll, especially in the way he was wont to rehearse the
particulars, that it cannot fail to be an edification to posterity, to
read and hear how it happened, and all about it. I may therefore take
leave to digress into the circumstantials, by way of lightening for a
time the seriousness of the sober and important matter, whereof it is my
intent that this book shall be a register and record to future times.