284 CALLS OF STRANGERS. CHAP. xvin. 



[Aside, "They only thresh straw a thousand times 

 threshed."] The editor afterwards stuck a prong into 

 his back after he was dead. 



Dick detested sneakingness and dishonesty. One 

 day a person called upon him and proceeded to say that 

 a gentleman, well skilled in botany and physical science, 

 then in Orkney, wished to call upon him, and that he 

 had come beforehand to tell him so. It immediately 

 flashed upon Dick's mind that this was the very person 

 himself. He said, " It's of no use for your friend to 

 call: I have no time for new acquaintances." The 

 stranger then tried to obtain an interview through a 

 third person, who was instructed to say that he was the 

 person of whom he had spoken. " No, no," said Dick ; 

 " tell him not to come here, for if he do I'll say what I 

 don't want to say to anybody." " What's that ?" " I'll 

 tell him to go to the !" was the reply. 



Many strangers, said a writer in the Northern 

 Ensign, visited Thurso without being able to see his 

 collections, although they had come for the express 

 purpose. In this list we believe we can include a 

 member of the reigning dynasty in France [Prince 

 Lucien Buonaparte ?] whom Mr. Dick refused to see, 

 greatly to his disappointment. But when once, he adds, 

 Mr. Dick had got the real measure of a man, and found 

 him what he thought he ought to be, all was right, and 

 the introduction of a stranger by such a person was the 

 unfailing open sesame to his house and his curiosities. 



Dick's servant and housekeeper, Annie Mackay, has 

 said of .him, that many people called to see her maister 



