CHAP. xvin. LION-HUNTERS. 283 



regret having extolled me so highly : the verses are 

 more like what a half-drunk Burns would write than 

 anything they know.' A weak but well-meaning bodie 

 at Cromarty sends me a pious bookie about the state of 

 my souL He says ' the spades, perhaps, are made that 

 will dig my grave/ He need not have had any ' perhaps ' 

 about the matter. Kirk-yard spades bury three or four 

 generations. A Dublin divine has sent me a letter that I 

 have put in the fire, with ' There goes Balaam's ass, No. I/ 

 Indeed you know that the rhyme was solely made to 

 make you laugh, while you were dowie." 



The lion-hunters then came upon him. Point/tmt a 

 man who has done something out of the ordinary way, 

 and immediately a tribe of nobodies flock to see him. 

 If they cannot get introduced to him, they will look at 

 him through his window, and try to see the lion through 

 the bars of his cage. Dick hated all this nonsense. 

 He would not be lionised. Every scientific man was 

 made welcome to his shop, his bakehouse, and his 

 parlour; but when persons, who knew nothing about 

 science, merely called to see him as a show, he was 

 shy and unapproachable. Some thought him rude. 

 Yet he was exceedingly attached to those who were his 

 genuine friends. 



A gentleman called upon him one day and sent in 

 his name. Dick was at work in the bakehouse. " Tell 

 him/' he said to Annie Mackay, " that I am very busy, 

 and cannot see him at present." Another message was 

 sent in: "Tell Mr. Dick that I am the editor of so 

 and so." The reply was, " I have no time for editors ;" 



