 which pure sympathy gave him on account of his wife's
kinswoman. He had now got a piece of real judicial business by the end, instead
of being obliged, as was his common case, to intrude his opinion where it was
neither wished nor wanted; and felt as happy in the exchange as a boy when he
gets his first new watch, which actually goes when wound up, and has real hands
and a true dial-plate. But besides this subject for legal disquisition,
Bartoline's brains were also overloaded with the affair of Porteous, his violent
death, and all its probable consequences to the city and community. It was what
the French call l'embarras des richesses, the confusion arising from too much
mental wealth. He walked in with a consciousness of double importance, full
fraught with the superiority of one who possesses more information than the
company into which he enters, and who feels a right to discharge his learning on
them without mercy. »Good morning, Mr. Deans, - good- to you, Mr. Butler, - I
was not aware that you were acquainted with Mr. Deans.«
    Butler made some slight answer; his reasons may be readily imagined for not
making his connection with the family, which, in his eyes, had something of
tender mystery, a frequent subject of conversation with indifferent persons,
such as Saddletree.
    The worthy burgher, in the plenitude of self-importance, now sate down upon
a chair, wiped his brow, collected his breath, and made the first experiment of
the resolved pith of his lungs, in a deep and dignified sigh, resembling a groan
in sound and intonation - »Awfu' times these, neighbour Deans, awfu' times!«
    »Sinfu', shamefu', heaven-daring times!« answered Deans, in a lower and more
subdued tone.
    »For my part,« continued Saddletree, swelling with importance, »what between
the distress of my friends, and my poor auld country, ony wit that ever I had
may be said to have abandoned me, sae that I sometimes think myself as ignorant
as if I were inter rusticos. Here when I arise in the morning, wi' my mind just
arranged touching what's to be done in puir Effie's misfortune, and hae gotten
the haill statute at my finger ends, the mob maun get up and string Jock
Porteous to a dyester's beam, and ding a' thing out of my head again.«
    Deeply as he was distressed with his own domestic calamity, Deans could not
help expressing some
