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

as furnished with three surprises,

One was his uncle,

soup and clarified punch towards an unyielding continent of fish, irrigated by brown sherry, mechanically rehearsing to myself the series of sparkling yet statesmanlike epigram

s second boy doing with

ed a trifle blan

phew,

he card which marked his

mes Fo

" to whom my secretary had casually referred, and whom he occasionally went to visit on Sunday afternoons. I had pictured an overdriven G.P., living in Bloomsbury or Balham, with a

ocial intercourse was concerned. On Sir James's left, I remember, sat a plethoric gentleman whose burnished countenance gave him the appearance of a sort of incarnate Gla

e me a good deal of i

t his meat and drink were not easily come by. Still, now that he has won through, he will not regret the experience. I had it myself. It is

ld h

w,-after forty years of London I sometimes find him so myself,-but he is a fine man,

little gratified way" which obtrudes itself

n the same happy

ohn has not achieved a K.C.B., but

d here, but I repeated

marry the same girl. She took the farmer one, so the other, poor thing, went off to London and beca

reconstruct a romance out

e, and became a firm friend of all th

off. Being distrustful of its merits, he had decided to offer it to just one good publisher, who could take it or leave it. If he took it, well and good. But if the publisher (and possibly jus

e parental instinct was averted by the one good publisher,

t we were apprised of the fact that we had been cherishing an author in our midst. Robin solemnly presented us with a copy apiece (which I thought handsome but extravagant), and also sent one to his parents, who, though

nder-side of journalism,-graphic and convincing, all this,-and contained a rather technical but absorbingly interesting account of some most exciting financial operations, winding up with a great de

than from a truly human desire to note how Robin would have handled them; for it is always interesting to see to what extent our frien

mpensations. There was

S B

TS INC

S THE

ICA

RCUM

V

H

NO CO

C

ol, and this circumstance wears petticoats. Hitherto I had not seriously connected Robin with the tender passion, and this

antly fluttered, though they were concerned less

red Kitty of me, the first time

t-prandial cigar at the time, at peace with all the worl

. "He-he hasn't said anything to you, has he

e Twins and Robin were out at the theatre.) Then, observing that she was stealthily regarding me through her eyelashes-a

ve affairs to you, I mean?" co

colates you will make yo

bmissively, pushing away the

trying to

estion. You men are such creatures for screening each other, thoug

in has hardly said a word to me on the

h her teeth-an unladylike habit about wh

you must have!" Then

sort of Highland lassie, in a kilt,

Stock Exchange 'owe its ince

k another

now you don't like it, dear, but I love doing it. I'll pour you out another glass of port. There!) But any idi

Burns to me, but that was à propos of

oems. He had sat smoking with me in the library late the same night, turning over the pages of the tattered volume, and quot

is like a re

wly sprun

is like

etly playe

thou, my b

in lov

membered how he glowered ecstatical

love thee st

he seas g

s fine! That's poetry.

nce being nearly dirked at a Caledonian Dinner because I ventured to rema

whether Robin's "bonnie lass" on that occas

one of the Twi

y close if it is. No," she continued more decidedly, "I don't think it

sprung upon us the third surprise of the series I have mentio

ndance upon the Twins for nearly two years, and had long since graduated into the rank

ely fixed upon a partic

ely selected Dicky out of t

admire them both equally, and to whom they appeared to apportion their favours with indiscriminate camar

it would break up

y'll have still less use for her-an engaged girl beside other girls is about as exciting as a t

t your fun would have been

to be in playing them backwards and forwards between o

hed reg

guely but regretfully. "Before, if they got in the way, I could always