there are few Scots who have not half-a-crown in their pockets, you will perhaps imagine that Friend Donald paid the money, glad to get out of the scrape so cheaply.
Not at all: when you are born in Scotland, you do not part with your cash without a little reflection.
So Donald reflected a moment.
Will he pay or go to jail? His heart wavers.
"I will go to jail," he exclaims, suddenly struck with a luminous idea.
Now the prison was in the chief town of his county, and it so happened that he had a little business to arrange there, but the railway fare was two shillings and eight pence halfpenny.
He passes the night in the lock-up, and in the morning is taken off by train to the prison.
Once safely there, Donald pulls half-a-crown from his purse, and demands a receipt of the governor, who has no choice but to give it him and set him at liberty. Our hero, proud as a king at the success of his plan, and the two pence halfpenny clear profit it has brought him, steers for the town and arranges his business.
Rabelais was not more cunning when he hit upon his stratagem for getting carried to Paris.
The Scotch themselves are fond of telling the following:
Dugald – "Did ye hear that Sandy McNab was ta'en up for stealin' a coo?"
Donald – "Hoot, toot, the stipit body! Could he no bocht it, and no paid for 't."
This explains why the Scotch prisons are relatively empty. Donald is often in the county court, but seldom in the police-court.
A good Scot begins the day with the following prayer:
"O Lord! grant that I may take no one in this day, and that no one may take me in. If Thou canst grant me but one of these favours, O Lord, grant that no one may take me in."
He would be a clever fellow, however, who could take in Donald.
There is no country where compacts are more faithfully kept than in Scotland. When you have the signature of a Scotchman in your pocket, you may make your mind easy; but, if you sign an agreement with him, you may be certain that he runs no risk of repenting of the transaction.
He is rarely at fault in his reckoning; but if, by chance, an error escapes him, it is not he who suffers by it.
I must hasten, however, to say that the honesty of the Scotch in England is proverbial. I have always heard the English say they liked doing business with Scotch firms, because they had the very qualities desirable in a customer: straight-forwardness and solvency.
Donald's honesty is all the more admirable, because he is firmly convinced in his heart, that he will go straight to Paradise whatever he may do. You will confess that there is danger about a Christian who feels sure that many things shall be forgiven him.
Perhaps his honesty may be the result of reflection, if the following little anecdote that was told me in Scotland is any criterion:
A worthy father, feeling death at hand, sends for his son to hear his last counsels.
"Donald," he says to him, "listen to the last words of your old father. If you want to get on in the world, be honest. Never forget that, in all business, honesty is the best policy. You may take my word for it, my son, —I hae tried baith."
This worthy Scot deserved an epitaph in the style of that one which the late Count Beust speaks of having seen on a tombstone at Highclere:
"Here lies Donald, who was as honest a man as it is possible to be in this world."
The Jews never got a footing in Scotland: they would have starved there.
They came; but they saw … and gave it up.
You may find one or two in Glasgow, but they are in partnership with Scotchmen, and do not form a band apart. They do not do much local business: they are exporters and importers.
The Aberdonians tell of a Jew who once came to their city and set up in business; but it was not long before he packed up his traps and decamped from that centre of Scotch 'cuteness.
"Why are you going?" they asked him. "Is it because there are no Jews in Aberdeen?"
"Oh, no," he replied; "I am going because you are all Jews here."
An American was so ill-inspired as to try his hand there where even a Jew had been beaten.
The good folk of Aberdeen are very proud of telling the following anecdote, which dates from only a few months back, and was in everyone's mouth at the time of my visit to the city of granite:
An American lecturer had signed an agreement with an Aberdonian, by which he undertook to go and lecture in Aberdeen for a fee of twenty pounds.
Dazzled by the success of his lectures, which were drawing full houses in all parts of England, the American bethought himself that he might have made better terms with Donald. Acting on this idea, he soon sent him a telegram, running thus:
"Enormous success. Invitations numerous. Cannot do Aberdeen for less than thirty pounds. Reply prepaid."
The Scot was not born to be taken in.
On the contrary.
Donald, armed with the treaty in his pocket, goes calmly to the telegraph office and wires:
"All right. Come on."
Jonathan, encouraged by the success of this first venture, rubs his hands, and, two days later, sends a second telegram, as follows:
"Invitations more and more numerous. Impossible to do Aberdeen for less than forty pounds."
Donald thinks the thing very natural, and laughs in his sleeve. He bids the messenger wait, and without hesitation he scribbles:
"All right. Come on."
Jonathan doubtless rubbed his hands harder than ever, and might have been very surprised if he had been told that Donald was rubbing his too.
However, he arrived in Aberdeen radiant, gave his lecture, and at the end was presented by Donald with a cheque for twenty pounds.
"Twenty pounds – but it is forty pounds you owe me!"
"You make a mistake," replied Donald, quietly: "here is our treaty, signed and registered."
"But I sent you a telegram to tell you that I could not possibly come for less than forty pounds."
"Quite so," replied Donald, unmoved.
"And you answered – 'All right. Come on.'"
"That is true."
"Well then?"
"Well, my dear sir, it is all right: you have come – now, you may go."
Like the crow in La Fontaine's fable, Jonathan registered a vow … but a little late.
"Ah!" cried the Aberdonian who told me the story, "Jonathan will not go back to America to tell his compatriots that he took in a Scotchman." And his eyes gleamed
