"Eh, nae doubt.There's aye a plentifu' supply o' fules in the warld."Seeing his good friend so well entertained, and needing his society no longer, Bobby got up, wagged his tail in farewell, and started toward the door.Mr.Traill summoned the little maid and spoke to her kindly: "Give Bobby a bone, lassie, and then open the door for him."In carrying out these instructions Ailie gave the policeman as wide leeway as possible and kept a wary eye upon him.The officer's duties were chiefly up on High Street.He seldom crossed the bridge, and it happened that he had never seen Bobby before.Just by way of making conversation he remarked, "I didna ken ye had a dog, John."Ailie stopped stock still, the cups on the tray she was taking out tinkling from her agitation.It was thus policemen spoke at private doors in the dark tenements: "I didna ken ye had the smallpox." But Mr.Traill seemed in no way alarmed.He answered with easy indulgence "That's no' surprising.There's mony a thing you dinna ken, Davie."The landlord forgot the matter at once, but Ailie did not, for she saw the officer flush darkly and, having no answer ready, go out in silence.In truth, the good-humored sarcasm rankled in the policeman's breast.An hour later he suddenly came to a standstill below the clock tower of the Tron kirk on High Street, and he chuckled.
"Eh, John Traill.Ye're unco' weel furnished i' the heid, but there's ane or twa things ye dinna ken yer ainsel'."Entirely taken up with his brilliant idea, he lost no time in putting it to work.He dodged among the standing cabs and around the buttresses of St.Giles that projected into the thoroughfare.
In the mid-century there was a police office in the middle of the front of the historic old cathedral that had then fallen to its lowest ebb of fortune.There the officer reported a matter that was strictly within the line of his duty.
Very early the next morning he was standing before the door of Mr.Traill's place, in the fitful sunshine of clearing skies, when the landlord appeared to begin the business of the day.
"Are ye Maister John Traill?"
"Havers, Davie! What ails you, man? You know my name as weel as you know your ain.""It's juist a formality o' the law to mak' ye admit yer identity.
Here's a bit paper for ye." He thrust an official-looking document into Mr.Traill's hand and took himself away across the bridge, fair satisfied with his conduct of an affair of subtlety.
It required five minutes for Mr.Traill to take in the import of the legal form.Then a wrathful explosion vented itself on the unruly key that persisted in dodging the keyhole.But once within he read the paper again, put it away thoughtfully in an inner pocket, and outwardly subsided to his ordinary aspect.He despatched the business of the day with unusual attention to details and courtesy to guests, and when, in mid afternoon, the place was empty, he followed Bobby to the kirkyard and inquired at the lodge if he could see Mr.Brown.
"He isna so ill, noo, Maister Traill, but I wadna advise ye to hae muckle to say to 'im." Mistress Jeanie wore the arch look of the wifie who is somewhat amused by a convalescent husband's ill humors."The pains grupped 'im sair, an' noo that he's easier he'd see us a' hanged wi' pleesure.Is it onything by the ordinar'?""Nae.It's just a sma' matter I can attend to my ainsel'.Do you think he could be out the morn?""No' afore a week or twa, an' syne, gin the bonny sun comes oot to bide a wee."Mr.Traill left the kirkyard and went out to George Square to call upon the minister of Greyfriars auld kirk.The errand was unfruitful, and he was back in ten minutes, to spend the evening alone, without even the consolation of Bobby's company, for the little dog was unhappy outside the kirkyard after sunset.And he took an unsettling thought to bed with him.
Here was a pretty kettle of fish, indeed, for a respected member of a kirk and middle-aged business man to fry in.Through the legal verbiage Mr.Traill made out that he was summoned to appear before whatever magistrate happened to be sitting on the morrow in the Burgh court, to answer to the charge of owning, or harboring, one dog, upon which he had not paid the license tax of seven shillings.
For all its absurdity it was no laughing matter.The municipal court of Edinburgh was of far greater dignity than the ordinary justice court of the United Kingdom and of America.The civic bench was occupied, in turn, by no less a personage than the Lord Provost as chief, and by five other magistrates elected by the Burgh council from among its own membership.Men of standing in business, legal and University circles, considered it an honor and a duty to bring their knowledge and responsibility to bear on the pettiest police cases.
It was morning before Mr.Traill had the glimmer of an idea to take with him on this unlucky business.An hour before the opening of court he crossed the bridge into High Street, which was then as picturesquely Gothic and decaying and overpopulated as the Cowgate, but high-set, wind-swept and sun-searched, all the way up the sloping mile from Holyrood Palace to the Castle.
The ridge fell away steeply, through rifts of wynds and closes, to the Cowgate ravine on the one hand, and to Princes Street's parked valley on the other.Mr.Traill turned into the narrow descent of Warriston Close.Little more than a crevice in the precipice of tall, old buildings, on it fronted a business house whose firm name was known wherever the English language was read:
"W.and R.Chambers, Publishers."
From top to bottom the place was gas-lit, even on a sunny spring morning, and it hummed and clattered with printing-presses.No one was in the little anteroom to the editorial offices beside a young clerk, but at sight of a red-headed, freckle-faced Heriot laddie of Bobby's puppyhood days Mr.Traill's spirits rose.
