But to me, who had no pretensions to be so critical, my companions seemed to form a very happy mixture of good-breeding and liberal information, with a disposition to lively rattle, pun, and jest, amusing to a grave man, because it is what he himself can least easily command.
The thin pale-faced man, whom their good-nature had brought into their society, looked out of place as well as out of spirits; sate on the edge of his seat, and kept the chair at two feet distance from the table; thus incommoding himself considerably in conveying the victuals to his mouth, as if by way of penance for partaking of them in the company of his superiors.

A short time after dinner, declining all entreaty to partake of the wine, which circulated freely round, he informed himself of the hour when the chaise had been ordered to attend; and saying he would be in readiness, modestly withdrew from the apartment.
"Jack," said the barrister to his companion, "I remember that poor fellow's face; you spoke more truly than you were aware of; he really is one of my clients, poor man." "Poor man!" echoed Halkit--"I suppose you mean he is your one and only client ?" "That's not my fault, Jack," replied the other, whose name I discovered was Hardie.

"You are to give me all your business, you know; and if you have none, the learned gentleman here knows nothing can come of nothing." "You seem to have brought something to nothing though, in the case of that honest man.

He looks as if he were just about to honour with his residence the Heart of Mid-Lothian." "You are mistaken--he is just delivered from it .-- Our friend here looks for an explanation.

Pray, Mr.Pattieson, have you been in Edinburgh ?" I answered in the affirmative.
"Then you must have passed, occasionally at least, though probably not so faithfully as I am doomed to do, through a narrow intricate passage, leading out of the north-west corner of the Parliament Square, and passing by a high and antique building with turrets and iron grates, Making good the saying odd, 'Near the church and far from God'"-- Mr.Halkit broke in upon his learned counsel, to contribute his moiety to the riddle--"Having at the door the sign of the Red man"-- "And being on the whole," resumed the counsellor interrupting his friend in his turn, "a sort of place where misfortune is happily confounded with guilt, where all who are in wish to get out"-- "And where none who have the good luck to be out, wish to get in," added his companion.
"I conceive you, gentlemen," replied I; "you mean the prison." "The prison," added the young lawyer--"You have hit it--the very reverend Tolbooth itself; and let me tell you, you are obliged to us for describing it with so much modesty and brevity; for with whatever amplifications we might have chosen to decorate the subject, you lay entirely at our mercy, since the Fathers Conscript of our city have decreed that the venerable edifice itself shall not remain in existence to confirm or to confute its." "Then the Tolbooth of Edinburgh is called the Heart of Mid-Lothian ?" said I.
"So termed and reputed, I assure you." "I think," said I, with the bashful diffidence with which a man lets slip a pun in presence of his superiors, "the metropolitan county may, in that case, be said to have a sad heart." "Right as my glove, Mr.Pattieson," added Mr.Hardie; "and a close heart, and a hard heart--Keep it up, Jack." "And a wicked heart, and a poor heart," answered Halkit, doing his best.
"And yet it may be called in some sort a strong heart, and a high heart," rejoined the advocate.