Page:Martha Spreull by Zachary Fleming.pdf/74

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FELT geyan flattered, I can tell ye, when Maister Fleming, egged up by Dr. Threshie, the minister-schulemaister in Montrose Street, minted the notion that I should put these ramblin' sketches in a book.

"Gae wa'," says I, wi' modest affableness, "wud ye really even sic a bold thing to me?"

But a' the same, I wis by-ordinar' weel pleased to ken that a professional lawyer like Maister Fleming, and a doctor o' deveenity like Dr. Threshie, wha had written a learned treatis on the Book o' Revelations, should think sae weel o' me as to believe I could write a book that onybody wud read.

Weel, thinks I, if I am to write a book, I maun be real natural, and just stick to fac's, for I ken fine I haena that divine afflawtus o' genius that enables poets and ithers to mak' gran' books oot o' naething ava. I fand oot that it wis the opeenion o' these twa learned men that I should tell tha