Dinmont upon that subject, requiring a small temporary loan, having no doubt that, being within sixty or seventy miles of his residence, he would receive a speedy as well as favourable answer to his request of pecuniary accommodation, which was owing, as he stated, to his having been robbed after their parting. And then, with impatience enough, though without serious apprehension, he waited the answers of these various letters.
It must be observed, in excuse of his correspondents, that the post was then much more tardy than since Mr Palmer's ingenious invention has taken place; and with respect to honest Dinmont in particular, as he rarely received above one letter a quarter, (unless during the time of his being engaged in a law-suit, when he regularly sent to the post-town,) his correspondence usually remained for a month or two sticking in the postmaster's window, among pamphlets, gingerbread, rolls, or ballads, according to the trade
