He had been told that he should be dismissed if he broke any of the china that was under his charge.

On the morning of a great dinner-party he was entrusted (rather rashly) with a great load of plates, which he was to carry up-stairs from the kitchen to the dining-room, and which were piled up, and rested upon his two hands.

In going up-stairs his foot slipped, and the plates were broken to atoms.

He at once went up to the drawing-room, put his head in at the door, and shouted: "The plates are a' smashed, and I'm awa." A facetious and acute friend, who rather leans to the Sydney Smith view of Scottish wit, declares that all our humorous stories are about lairds, and lairds that are drunk.

Of such stories there are certainly not a few.