The porter, who was naturally a man of some experience, judged my accoutrement to be well chosen.
"Naething kenspeckle,"[1] said he, "plain, dacent claes.

As for the rapier, nae doubt it sits wi' your degree; but an I had been you, I would hae waired my siller better-gates than that." And proposed I should buy winter-hosen from a wife in the Cowgate-back, that was a cousin of his own, and made them "extraordinar endurable." But I had other matters on my hand more pressing.

Here I was in this old, black city, which was for all the world like a rabbit-warren, not only by the number of its indwellers, but the complication of its passages and holes.

It was indeed a place where no stranger had a chance to find a friend, let be another stranger.

Suppose him even to hit on the right close, people dwelt so thronged in these tall houses, he might very well seek a day before he chanced on the right door.