Page:Comical stories of Thrummy Cap and the Ghaist (NLS104185773).pdf/23



The Reverend Mr Thom of Govan, riding home from Paisley, on a particular occasion, came up with two gentlemen, heritors of his parish, who had lately been made justices of the peace. They, seeing him well mounted, as usual, were determined pass a joke on him, and accosted him thus :—

Well, Mr Thom, you are very unlike your master, for he was content to ride on an ass.’ ‘An ass,’ says Mr Thom, ‘there’s no sic a beast to be gotten now-a-days.’ ‘Ay, how’s that?’ said they, ‘Because,’ replied Mr Thom, ‘they now make them a’ justices of the peace.

The late Reverend Mr C...... of D......, in Aberdeenshire, being summoned before his presbytery, for tippling, one of his elders, the constant participator of his orgies, was summoned to appear as a witness against him. ‘Weel, John,’ said a member of the reverend court, ‘did you ever see Mr C...... the worse of drink?’ ‘Weel I wat, no,’ answered John; I’ve mony time seen him the better o’t, but never seen him the waur o’t.’ ‘But did you never see him drunk? ‘That’s what I’ll never see,’ replied the elder; ‘for lang before he’s half slokened, I’m aye blind fou.’