CHAPTER III.
MISTRESS CROALE.
The house at which they met had yet not a little character remaining.

Mistress Croale had come in for a derived worthiness, in the memory, yet lingering about the place, of a worthy aunt deceased, and always encouraged in herself a vague idea of obligation to live up to it.

Hence she had made it a rule to supply drink only so long as her customers kept decent--that is, so long as they did not quarrel aloud, and put her in danger of a visit from the police; tell such tales as offended her modesty; utter oaths of any peculiarly atrocious quality; or defame the Sabbath Day, the Kirk, or the Bible.

On these terms, and so long as they paid for what they had, they might get as drunk as they pleased, without the smallest offence to Mistress Croale.

But if the least unquestionable infringement of her rules occurred, she would pounce upon the shameless one with sudden and sharp reproof.