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It was thus established that the family name was Gill; that the younger William Gill did not marry the daughter of the last Earl of Wigton (or Wigtoun); that he was never a Captain in the 2nd Life Guards; and that in 1803, when he was alleged to have raised two troops of cavalry, he had already resigned his commission four years. Human nature being what it is, this exposure may have brought a smile to the lips of the Bowyer-Smijths who had listened to Gyll's stories of a cock and of a bull for a quarter of a century. Gyll collapsed at once when detected, and he published no more results of his genealogical researches. It is a pity, for who knows to what length of absurdity he might not have gone? Who knows, indeed, whether his little tale of the Lord Mayor and the baronetcy is not of a piece with the rest? I have searched the contemporary newspapers, and the nearest approach that I can find to a confirmation of Gyll's assertion is in The Diary; or Woodfall's Register (Friday, April 24, 1789): "That the Lord Mayor will be a Baronet is now certain; and that Deputies Seekey and Birch will be knighted is extremely probable." I do not know what happened to Seekey and Birch. The Gylls are enough for a lifetime. Years afterwards a correspondent to Notes and Queries (December 26, 1876, p. 512) derisively observed that "the Gyll family, however, quarter the Flemyng arms, and also the Flemyng crest." But the badger was not to be drawn a third time: Gyll endured the affront in the meekest silence.

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