Note 179 — MARLIN’S AND NIDDRY’S WYNDS.

In the house to the north of this was a shop kept by an eccentric personage, who exhibited a sign bearing this singular inscription:

ORRA THINGS BOUGHT AND SOLD—

which signified that he dealt in odd articles, such as a single shoe-buckle, one of a pair of skates, a teapot wanting a lid, or perhaps, as often, a lid minus a teapot; in short, any unpaired article which was not to be got in the shops where only new things were sold, and which, nevertheless, was now and then as indispensably wanted by householders as anything else.