Brodie,
the amateur, courted the society of all cross coves, and would rather
express himself in Pedlar's French than in his choicest Scots. While the
Englishman scraped Tate and Brady from a one-stringed fiddle, the Scot
limped a chaunt from The Beggar's Opera, and thought himself a devil
of a fellow. The one was a man about town masquerading as a thief; the
other the most serious among housebreakers, singing psalms in all good
faith.
But if Peace was incomparably the better craftsman, Brodie was the
prettier gentleman. Peace would not have permitted Brodie to drive his
pony-trap the length of Evelina Road. But Brodie, in revenge, would
have cut Peace had he met him in the Corn-market. The one was a sombre
savage, the other a jovial comrade, and it was a witty freak of fortune
that impelled both to follow the same trade. And thus you arrive at
another point of difference. The Englishman had no intelligence of
life's amenity. He knew naught of costume: clothes were the limit of
his ambition. Dressed always for work, he was like the caterpillar which
assumes the green of the leaf, wherein it hides: he wore only such duds
as should attract the smallest notice, and separate him as far as might
be from his business. But the Scot was as fine a dandy as ever took
(haphazard) to the cracking of kens. If his refinement permitted
no excess of splendour, he went ever gloriously and appropriately
apparelled. He was well-mannered, cultured, with scarce a touch of
provincialism to mar his gay demeanour: whereas Peace knew little
enough outside the practice of burglary, and the proper handling of the
revolver.
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