The Right Stuff: Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton

n if we had not occasionally cast a curious

t-and appeared if anything to avoid them. If he found himself in their company he treated them with a certain grave reticence-he soon grew out of his fondness

anding young man, full of promise, but hampered in every direction by abysmal ignorance on matters of vita

f tying a dress tie; the intricate ritual which governs such things as visiting-cards and asparagus; the exact limit of the domains of brown boots and dinner-j

ted to enter or leave a room without awkwardness, and his manner of address was perfect. He was neither servile nor familiar, and the only people t

he realised, in spite of hereditary preference for inward worth as opposed to outward show, that though a coat cannot make a man, a good man in a good coat often has the advantage of a good man in a bad coat. So he allowed the Twins to round off his corners; and, withou

nce heard a Highland minister refer as "the giddy and godless French"; but Robin was not given to the revelation of his private thoughts. He seldom spoke of the Twins to me-he was a discusser of manners rather than men-but he once remarked that th

im say "No, really?" or "My word, what rot!" when you knew that his tongue was it

h at table and ask one of his preceptresses, in the frankest manner possible, whether the exigencies of the situation called for a spoon or a fork: an

a united and well-organised body that year, and we had to rise early and go to bed late to keep their assaults at bay while proceeding with the programme of the session. Every afternoon, before I entered the House to take my place at qu

simple-but Robin's eye used to glow with the light of battle as he rehearsed

to me, "to stand up in your place

I sighed. "And," I added, "

me in our acquaintance, and I heard

ind lay