And yet it is strange that he not only chose them, but chose the
inferior and lighter-headed of the two for far the most important and
difficult of the two businesses. In the printing concern there was at
least this to be said, that of part of the business--the selection of
type and the superintendence of the executive part,--James Ballantyne
was a good judge. He was never apparently a good man of business, for
he kept no strong hand over the expenditure and accounts, which is the
core of success in every concern. But he understood types; and his
customers were publishers, a wealthy and judicious class, who were not
likely all to fail together. But to select a "Rigdumfunnidos,"--a
dissipated comic-song singer and horse-fancier,--for the head of a
publishing concern, was indeed a kind of insanity. It is told of John
Ballantyne, that after the successful negotiation with Constable for
_Rob Roy_, and while "hopping up and down in his glee," he exclaimed,
"'Is Rob's gun here, Mr. Scott? Would you object to my trying the old
barrel with a _few de joy_?' 'Nay, Mr.
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