CHAPTER XVII .-- MY FIRST AND LAST PLAY.
_Pla_.

I' faith I like the audience that frequenteth there With much applause: a man shall not be chokt With the stench of garlick, nor be pasted firm To the barmy jacket of a beer-brewer.
_Bra_.

'Tis a good gentle audience, and I hope The boys will come one day in great request.
_Jack Drum's Entertainment_.

1601.
Out cam the gudeman, and laigh he louted; Out cam the gudewife, and heigh she shouted; And a the toun-neibours gather'd about it; And there he lay, I trow.
_The Cauldrife Wooer_.
The time of Tammie Bodkin's apprenticeship being nearly worn through, it behoved me, as a man attentive to business, and the interests of my family, to cast my eyes around me in search of a callant to fill his place; as it is customary in our trade for young men, when their time is out, taking a year's journeymanship in Edinburgh, to perfect them in the more intricate branches of the business, and learn the newest manner of the French and London fashions, by cutting cloth for the young advocates, the college students, the banking-house clerks, the half-pay ensigns, and the rest of the principal tip-top bucks.
Having, though I say it myself, the word of being a canny maister, more than one brought their callants to me, on reading the bill of "An apprentice wanted," pasted on my shop-window.
Offering to bind them for the regular time, yet not wishing to take but one, I thought best not to fix in a hurry, and make choice of him that seemed more exactly cut out for my purpose.

In the course of a few weeks three or four cast up, among whom was a laddie of Ben Aits the mealmonger, and a son of William Burlings the baker; to say little of the callant of Saunders Broom the sweep, that would fain have put his blackit- looking bit creature with the one eye and the wooden leg under my wing; but I aye looked to respectability in these matters; so glad was I when I got the offer of Mungo Glen .-- But more of this in half a minute.
I must say I was glad of any feasible excuse to make to the sweep, to get quit of him and his laddie, the father being a drucken ne'er-do weel, that I wonder did not fall long ere this time of day from some chimney- head, and get his neck broken.