Chapter V.
A Leading Barrister.

While the rest of his family preferred the pleasures of a Melba concert, held in the Town Hall, old John chose to spend the evening with an old friend, who, with his family, resided far out in the suburbs, and who, like old John himself, possessed an overweaning predilection for draught playing. These two old fogies pored over the board until such a late hour that old John narrowly escaped missing the last tram back to town. And before half the sections had been traversed he was the one solitary occupant of the car, and the only passenger left to alight at the terminus. Prompted no doubt by the glad feeling of having at last finished for “the day,” the conductor called out a cheerful “good-night” as our quaint friend crept down off the footboard. Old John paused for a moment to study the lay of the town, then directed his footsteps for the hotel. The smellsome street was dark, and dull, and empty. Not a sound, save the echo of his own footsteps ringing out on the hard, hollow pavements, pervaded it. The crowds of jostling people had gone; all the theatre-goers had long since wended their way to their homes and lodging places; street singers, cheap jacks, and beggars had departed; the sin and vice of the city that was usually flaunting round in paint and powder and all the alluring colours of the rainbow had disappeared as completely as though swallowed by an earthquake. A light, drizzling rain was falling, and wretchedness and misery seemed to hang like a shroud over the dazzling city. A few lights still flickered afar out on the silent, ghostly waters of the dark and distant harbour. Mayhaps, in the absence of the great shop illuminations, the pallid gas-lamps holding sentry at the street corners burned brighter than they were wont to do.

A night-porter unbolted the large front door of the hotel with grating noise, and with a series of bows and succulent smiles admitted old John.

“Ah’m late, eh?” he said, apologetically.

The porter smiled some more.

“Not the latest, though, sir,” he answered, in a consoling tone of voice. “There’s any amount more to come after you.”

“What, to-naht?” and old John looked surprised.

“Oh, I don’t know about to-night, sir,” with a significant grin, “some of them generally turn up about morning.”

He bolted the door again, and old John peregrinated in the direction of the elevator. A light was burning in the hotel office. Two gentlemen were leaning on the bottom half of the double door that guarded it, conversing volubly. One had been to the theatre and still wore his dress suit, and a large diamond stud shone in the centre of his starched shirt like the morning star. The other wore a long top-coat, buttoned all the way down, beneath which a pair of carpet slippers protruded. A couple of empty glasses stood before them, resting on the door ledge.

The one in the long coat and carpet slippers greeted old John boisterously.

“Hello!” he cried, “this is a nice hour for a respectable married man to come in!”

Old John, who had made the gentleman’s acquaintance during the course of numerous quiet chats in the smoking-room, laughed, and said:

“Ah-h, but that be th’ pot calling th’ kettle black. Why ain’t yow in bed?”

“Well, I was,” answered the other in extenuation, and throwing open his top-coat displayed a suit of gaudy pyjamas, “but my friend, here, dragged me out to come down and have a drink with him. Let me introduce you” (turning to his friend). “Mr. Dashwood, one of our wealthiest and most successful farmers. Mr. Portland, Mr. Dashwood; one of our country’s brightest barristers. In fact, I might say the brightest counsel in the Commonwealth. I suppose you’ve heard of him.”

Old John had heard of barrister Portland, and proceeded to make a great mouthful of the circumstance. He was overjoyed at making the acquaintance of such a noted person.

“Oh! Ah-h! Mah word!” he exclaimed, seizing hold of the great counsel’s extended hand, “Ah wer’ on th’ jury once, when yow were defenden th’ presoners.”

Barrister Portland’s eye began to sparkle with the glow of professional pride.

“Indeed,” he said; “when was that, Mr. Dashwood?”

Old John gave him the day and date, and the name of the presiding judge, and those of the prisoners, with a few remarks thrown in on the personal inconvenience he himself underwent during a busy harvest time to attend the assizes.

Mr. Portland remembered the sittings, and all its attendant circumstances and triumphs perfectly.

“Oh, by Jove, yes,” he observed, turning with enthusiasm to his long-coated companion. “I defended six prisoners that day, Murphy, five of them as d— scoundrels as ever looked a judge in the eye. The other was a harmless poor devil of a nigger, who seemed to regard his trial for murder as a sort of bora ceremony. In fact, I had an idea all the time that he thought we were marrying him to a nice little gin, and that I was there simply acting as best man, and old Judge Browser tying the knot.” (Here Murphy laughed heartily.) “Well the five d— scoundrels, I might tell you, that I reckoned on having a devil of a fight for, I got off without turning a hair. ‘Not guilty,’ said the jury” (here Mr. Portland laughed himself). “But to my utter astonishment your friend here” (smiling at old John) “and his brother jurymen put the rope round the poor unfortunate nigger’s neck without leaving the box.” Then, addressing old John: “I could never understand that verdict, Mr. Dashwood!”

“Ah, well, yow see,” answered old John, “we let five on ’em go, an’ it would a looked bad to let ’em all off!”

“Ah! and so you hanged the nigger for preference!” said Mr. Portland. “Well, that’s candid, and it shows that there are occasions in Australia when a nigger is chosen for a job before a white man.” Then turning to the night-porter, who stood behind the office door listening to the conversation with a broad smile on his clean-shaven, flinty face: “Fill those up again. What are you going to drink, Mr. Dashwood?”

Old John hesitated.

“Well,” he drawled, “Ah dersent drink but very little as a rule.”

“Well, you are going to break the rule this time,” insistently from the great barrister. “You see, Mr. Dashwood,” he added, “I don’t know when I might have you on one of my juries again.”

“Ah, well, a little port wine,” said old John to the porter.

The three glasses being filled, they drank to each other’s health, wealth and continued prosperity. Then the leading counsel of the Commonwealth, who had accounted for numerous drinks during the evening, talked with increased volubility, and grew reminiscent of his Bar experiences. With a profundity and fluency that was amazing he poured forth anecdote after anecdote, recounted stories of the various judges that would have made their Honours blush to hear, and related sensational instances of juries being bribed and intimidated. He mimicked the mannerisms and styles of speech that characterised his less successful brothers at the Bar, till his friend Murphy, the porter behind the “door,” and old John were forced to hold their sides in order to prevent internal dislocations.

To old John in particular the great barrister’s company was heaven upon earth. It was the first time in his long life that he had been privileged to share learned society. Besides, the port wine was of the best. And taking advantage of a lull, while Mr. Portland lit for himself a large superbly-flavoured cigar, he said, with enthusiasm, to the porter: “Just fill them yere glasses up again, my boy!”

The porter filled those glasses again; and old John, rummaging his pockets, discovered they were empty of silver.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter, sir,” said the porter accommodatingly. “I’ll mark them up, and you can pay for them in the morning.” Then, as if to emphasise his confidence in old John, he spilled one out for himself, which he also marked down to old John.

“Never worry about owing a few drinks here, Mr. Dashwood,” the famous barrister remarked off-handedly, “the hotel belongs to a wealthy temperance syndicate. A good harvest, Mr. Dashwood.” Down went the whisky in a gulp, then, smacking his lips a few times, Mr. Portland took a pull at the cigar, and plunged into a story about “a deaf and dumb fellow, a college chum of his who turned out to be one of the most capable and eloquent pleaders at the Bar in Mexico.”

Suddenly and solemnly the great city clock, a mile up the street, chimed out the hour as 1.30 o’clock. The great barrister stopped in the middle of his story, pricked his ears, and quoted a weird lump of Latin verse that had particular reference to graves, and the dead, and midnight.

As the melancholy echoes of the clock died away several solemn, dusty-looking hotel-hands, habitues of the scullery, appeared, shoving before them a lengthy four-wheeled trolly, upon which was stacked to an alarming height a magnificent pile of boots and shoes—males’, females’ and children’s—and the soles of which were numbered in chalk.

“Upon my honour, just look here,” exclaimed Mr. Portland, upon observing the cargo of shoe leather that had been “put out” by the lodgers to be cleaned while they themselves slumbered peaceably in their hired beds, “now isn’t that a sight worth sitting up to see—eh? Isn’t it?”

“An’ that ain’t all of ’em,” sorrowfully remarked one of the dusty boot-blacks, while his two companions stood beside the pile and grinned grins of irony.

“You don’t say so!” cried Mr. Portland enthusiastically, “and are you fellows going to polish that ship-load before morning?”

“Before mornin’?” grinned one. “It’s that now, sir!”

“Then before you start on your long and early journey round those number nines, gentlemen, you had better have a drink.”

The boot-blacks required no second invitation. And they didn’t wait to make enquiries as to the respectability of the person who desired them to drink with him. Boot-blacks all know the dangers of delays. Their feet didn’t hit the floor once before they arrived with a loud bang against the office door.

“Brandy, Billy,” they all said in the same breath.

Mr. Portland bowed interrogatively to old John. Old John said he’d “have port wine again.”

Mr. Portland himself and his friend Murphy remained true to whisky.

“Best respec’s, sir,” said the boot-blacks, up-ending their glasses.

“Your very best health, gentlemen; and a pleasant morning,” responded the noted barrister—“a pleasant morning.”

He emptied his glass and strode over to the heap of shoe leather and surveyed it. A huge, ugly male boot of great length caught his legal eye. He lifted it, and stared long and studiously at it. “Enough to give any man ten years!” he said scornfully, and dropped the boot back on the pile.

The boot-blacks grinned.

“That’s Judge Yorrick’s,” one of them said. “He’s here to-night!”

“Heavens!” cried Mr. Portland, lifting the long, ill-shaped boot again, “so it is! I should have known it by the utter look of imbecility it has about it; by the woeful lack of decision and direction that’s stamped all over it; and, above all, I most certainly should have recognised its distinguished owner in it by the almost entire absence of a sole! Poor old Yorrick! I know you too —— well,” and once more Mr. Portland dropped the boot on the pile. Looking further afield his eyes rested on a lady’s shoe with “21” chalked on the sole of it. He took it in his hand and turned it over and over tenderly. He pressed it to his starched bosom and said: “Ah, th’ dear, dainty little thing.” (Old John and Murphy laughed.) “Could that innocent, empty little shoe but speak!”

The chalked figures on the sole caught his eye, “Ah! and your owner is only 21. A tender age! The bloom and bud of life!”

“Twenty-one!” growled one of the boot-blacks. “Yer wouldn’t say so if yer see’d her upstairs, sir. A leather-necked ole hen, what’s nearer a century. ‘Twenty-one’ is only the number of her room!”

“What!” cried Mr. Portland sharply, “that’s—that’s my wife’s, then!”

Then all at once it seemed to come upon him from different directions that he had been basely insulted.

A burst of laughter greeted his ears.

“You d— ruffian!” he shouted and flung the shoe at the head of the offending boot-black, who promptly ducked and took refuge in the dark shades of the elevator encasement. The two remaining boot-blacks entered into the humour of the situation. Mr. Portland turned his wrath upon them.

“Scullery rats!” he cried. “Take that! and that!” aiming in quick succession at them Judge Yorrick’s large ill-tempered-looking boots. The shoe-blacks dodged this way and that. The leading counsel of the Commonwealth armed himself with a fresh supply of clog-hoppers, and pursued them with vengeance in his eye. The night-porter and Murphy and old John pursued Mr. Portland, calling upon him to “take no notice.” The affrighted shoe-blacks flew up several flights of the great stairs. Mr. Portland pelted them up on to the fourth landing. Here he was overtaken by the night-porter, his friend Murphy and old John. They beseeched him in the interests of the slumbering lodgers, and in the good name and reputation of the hotel, to desist.

Mr. Portland desisted.

“Well, call the scavengers back,” he said, starting to descend the stairs, “and we’ll have a doch-an-doris.”

The night-porter called them back. With grins on their faces the shoe-blacks returned cautiously to their pile of boots.

“A doch-an-doris, you sweeps,” called out the great barrister to them, “and I’ll file a Nolle Prosequi against you, and let you off without a stain on your blackened characters.”

The three shoe-blacks came up to the office door again, smiling.

They all drank again.

“Well, we’ve had a very pleasant evening,” Mr. Portland said, addressing his friend Murphy, “taking it all in all. And Mr. Dashwood,” turning to old John, “I have to thank you for the pleasure of your company this evening, and I’m quite alive to the fact that your stay with us was prolonged at acute personal inconvenience and sacrifice to yourself. Porter,” to the night officer, as he pointed to the lift, “lead thou the way to that virtuous bug-roost for the joys of which I am paying four guineas a week!”

The porter led the way; and the merry trio ascended in the lift to disperse on different floors and seek their respective rooms.

Next morning, old John, with some silver in his hand and a look of repentance on his brow, sought the night-porter.

“What is it Ah owes yow for last naht,” he enquired, in a confidential whisper.

With a meaning smile the porter referred to the pages of a pocket book.

“I thought we were going to have some trouble, last night, sir?” he began. But old John wasn’t to be drawn. He had no inclination whatever to discuss the doings of “last night.”

“How mooch, lad?” he whispered again, glancing restlessly over his shoulder to see if Mrs. Dashwood was hovering near.

“Yours come to—let me see—one pound two and sixpence,” and the porter’s face never moved a muscle or disclosed the slightest suspicion of his feeling in any way the pangs of a guilty conscience.

Old John staggered visibly.

“Eh?” he said, “Ah only put down one lot o’ drinks, weren’t it?” and he glanced back over his shoulder again.

“I don’t suppose you remember, sir,” said the unblushing flunkey, in low, guarded tones that insinuated scandal and disgrace, “y’ know you were shouting right and left for all hands. Oh, you were terrible bad last night, sir, terrible bad!”

Here old John observed Mrs. Dashwood making towards him from the breakfast room.

“One pahnd two an’ sex,” he murmured, dropping the coin into the porter’s hand.

“Right, sir, thank you, sir,” said that gentle, obliging rascal, and, with a heavy sinking feeling at his heart, old John turned away.

Chapter VI.
Meeting McClure.

Monday.

“Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-g-g-g.” And the great town-clock, towering in solitary state above the noisy, dirty city, proclaimed it one o’clock. One o’clock! The hour when the great army of poorly-paid clerks, clerks with little lungs, little vitality, and less prospects, clerks with wives and large families dependent upon them, put down their pens with weary sigh, and, turning to the modest sandwich bulked in the packet with a banana, begin their mid-day meal; the hour when ministers of the crown, heads of departments, proprietors, directors and managers of business houses, bank managers, promoters of gold mines, coal mines and delusive oil mines, and the horde of affluent purse-proud members of city society swagger forth with air of rare importance into the main thoroughfares to advertise their persons and prosperity and to dine largely and expensively at the clubs, the grand hotels, and the swell tea-rooms. One o’clock! the hour when doors of smellsome factories open to emit teams of men and women, boys and girls, into the open for a mouthful of fresh air, some to collect in circles about the doors, munching their bit of lunch, some to hang round the nearest street corner, others to play quoits or gamble for pence on some vacant allotment or down a dark lane; the hour when followers of the turf or football and cricket congregate before the sporting rendezvous to smoke cigars and cigarettes, and to criticise all that happened, or that should have happened, on the Saturday before; the hour, too, when the labour agitator, seizing time by the forelock, takes the stump in park and square to straighten out the political question of the day and arrange things with the working man for the effective belting of “boodle” with the heavy end of the ballot box.

And, standing beneath that great clock, old John and Peter stared up at its giddy height and wondered by what means it was ever elevated to such a position. And while they debated the matter with each other a burly, hairy form in a new roomy tweed suit and a new hat waddled from the crowd and greeted them in cheery, familiar voice.

“Mah gracious me if ’n ain’t Duncan McClure!” cried old John, holding out his hand, while Peter started to laugh with delight at the welcome and unexpected appearance of their good-natured country cousin.

“By criky!” said Duncan, his humorous little eyes twinkling merrily from behind the rolls of fat that gathered in his hairy cheeks, “I was standin’ ower there a’maist cryin’ harrd, while I was listenin’ tae a chap singin’ ‘Th’ Bonnie Hills o’ Scotland’ when I keeked ower here an’ saw ye. ‘By cripes!’ I said, ‘if that’s no auld John Dashwood an’ Peter, I’ll eat ma bloomin’ bonnet.’”

“Ah-h,” laughed old John, “you’ve good eyes, Duncan; an’ yow won’t have to eat yow’re hat.”

“By gosh, an’ I’m jolly glad aboot it, for Ah jist bocht it oot o’ a shop the noo, and it cost me five an’ saxpence,” and, taking his hat off, McClure invited his friends to pass their friendly opinion upon the merits of his purchase.

They both gazed on the felt and at McClure’s bare head and smiled.

“Dae ye no think it’s dirt cheap at five an saxpence?” asked McClure proudly. “It’s sic a lang time sin’ I bocht onything mysel wi’oot th’ wife that I had maist forgotten hoo tae make a deal wi’ th’ skaff-raff ahind th’ coonter.”

Old John dragged his own “nail-can” off, and answered:

“Well, Ah paid fourteen shillins for yon.”

“Holy Smoke!” and McClure pulled a long and serious face. “Ye maun be gaun balmy.”

“It’s a good het, though,” John said, in justification of the expenditure.

“Weel, it’s a different sorrt tae mine,” Duncan drawled, “that ane o’ yours is th’ sorrt Tam o’ Todshaw an’ auld George Reid an’ some o’ th’ blackfellows that gets hats gi’en tae them for naething wears. I dinna care for that style mysel’ a bit. They look well eneuch on you, though, Dashwood; a lot better than on George Reid.”

Peter removed his head-gear and remarked that he only paid “eight bob” for it.

“I wadna be seen deid wi’ a hat like that, Peter,” Duncan said. “By cripes, I dinna ken where ye got ane like it.”

Peter laughed, and all three replaced their hats on their heads, quite oblivious of the fact that a number of people standing by were smiling hard at them.

“I didn’t know yow were dahn here, McClure,” old John remarked, opening up fresh conversation.

“Tae tell th’ truth,” Duncan answered, “I didna mean tae come doon till I kent ye were here yoursel’, Dashwood. ‘I’ll swear be ma soul,’ I said tae the wife, ’auld Johnny Dashwood’s hae’n a deil o’ a gude time o’ it,’ an’ she said: ‘Well, can ye nae gang doon yoursel’?’ ‘By cripes, now,’ I thocht, ‘I just will,’ and I had nae sooner thocht it than a chap frae th’ railway came along an’ telt us a’ aboot th’ cheap fares——”

Here a sudden gust of wind lifted McClure’s hat from his head and propelled it into the centre of the street, amongst the traffic. Peter pursued it on Duncan’s behalf. Before he could rescue it, however, a cabman’s horse put his foot in it, and cut gashes in the crown of it. Peter, smiling, returned with it in his hand.

“By cripes, now!” Duncan said, staring at the ruin, “isn’t that a holy terror. It’s eneuch tae make a bloomin’ pairson swear.”

Old John went off into laughter: “Hoh! hoh! hoh! hoh! hoh!” he roared, while he rocked and rolled about on the pavement.

“Bust ye!” Duncan said, and, punching the damaged felt into some sort of shape with his fat fist, pulled it over his head again, leaving a tuft of his hair sticking up through it like the comb on a cock’s head.

Old John and Peter laughed more.

“Yow can’t wear yon now, McClure,” old John said, advisedly, “yow moost get anoother.”

“I’ll need tae get a bit o’ a snack first,” answered Duncan, plunging both hands into his roomy pockets and looking quite happy as he stared about him. Then after a silence:

“Hae you fellows had a feed yet?”

Neither old John or Peter had had lunch, but both were hungry.

“There’s a rrattlin’ gude place just roon this corner,” McClure suggested. “A blackfellow keeps it—weel he’s na exac’ly a blackfellow, either, he’s mair o’ a yaller fellow, but he keeps gude stuff, an’ he gi’es ye a grreat lump o’ steak what’s a’ fu’ o’ juice. By crikey! an’ when ye takes a mouthfu’ o’ it ye hae tae eat like a rracehorse tae keep it frae a’ rinnin’ oot down yer cheeks,” and, waddling off through the thronging people, McClure conducted John and Peter to his favoured restaurant.

When they had comfortably seated themselves at a small table, and given their orders to a robust-looking waiter, Duncan, staring before him, observed dryly:

“By Christmas, that’s a braw necktie ye hae on, Dashwood. I can see it quite plain i’ that lookin’-glass ower there!”

Peter, starting to giggle, began adjusting his tie in the mirror.

“Oh, yours isn’t nearly sae gran’, Peter,” Duncan added, noticing the action of the other.

But old John offered no remark. He neither excused nor denied the gaiety of his neck adornments. He merely groaned, and glared about to see if there were any signs of the lunch arriving.

Duncan, catching Peter’s eye in the mirror, winked and remarked further:

“It reminds me o’ a grreat joke I used tae hae wi’ auld Sam Snather and Paddy O’Regan th’ first year that I started selectin’ at Craig-lea. I’ them days we a’ had tae borrow quite a lot o’ things frae each ither, an’ these twa auld beggars that I’m gaun tae tell ye aboot were as harrd as th’ deil hissel to borrow a thing frae. De ye recollec’ any o’ them, Dashwood?”

Old John said he remembered them well.

“But Peter wadna,” Duncan continued, “he was anely a wean then crawlin’ aboot pu’in’ th’ cat’s tail. Weel, when it became rreal necessary tae beg th’ lane o’ onything frae auld O’Regan I used tae pu’ roon’ ma neck a wallopin’ grreat green muffler, an’ bring th’ end o’ it richt back roon’d me waist an’ ride ower wi’ it showin’ like a rainbow. An’ auld O’Regan he’d be sae awfu’ pleased that he’d gie me anything he had aboot th’ farm. In fac’ I believe he’d hae gi’en me his auld saw o’ a wife tae take away on ma shouther for th’ askin’.”

“I didn’t know he had a wife,” old John remarked.

“By cripes, then,” said McClure, “if it wasna his ane it was some ither yin’s. There was ane there. But wi’ auld Sam Snather,” he went on, “it was dufferent. Sam, he was one o’ them wild, blatherin’ Orangemen, an’ when Ah wantit tae borrow onything frae Sam I was a’ways maist carefu’ tae pit on a grreat yaller muffler. An’ soon’s I came beside th’ hoose wi’ mae heid concealed frae view ahint th’ peach trees, I’d start whusslin’ ‘Th’ Battle o’ th’ Boyne’ michty harrd. By crikey, auld Sam wad be awfu’ pleased. He’d bring me intae th’ hoose tae show me a pictur’ o’ th’ grreat battle whaur William fought an’ bled——”

Here the waiter turned up with the “juicy” steak, and all three eagerly settled down to business.

“Dinna yae think it’s gude beef, Dashwood?” Duncan enquired, eating noisily.

Old John agreed that it was.

“D’ ye like it, Peter?” and Duncan looked to see how Dashwood junior was faring.

Peter’s mouth was too full to reply at the moment, but his eyes and bulging cheeks conveyed all the answer that Duncan required.

For quite a long interval no conversation was carried on, but as the steak disappeared from his plate Duncan found his tongue again.

“Auld Dill Mackay’s a grreat Orangeman,” he said “Hae ye ever heard him preach, Dashwood?”

Old John said he hadn’t.

“Naither hae Ah,” said Duncan, “but Ah hae seen a pictur’ o’ his legs i’ th’ Bulletin. D’ ever ye rread th’ Bulletin, Dashwood?”

Old John shook his head.

“I suppose you rread th’ Maissenger. Ah rread that, too, sometimes, but there’s a deil o’ a lot o’ religion in it. Th’ Bulletin is deefferent tae th’ Maissenger. It’s a maist irreverent bloomin’ paper, an’ I dinna see what’s tae preevent them as write it frae a’ gaun tae hell thegither; but this pictur’ Ah’m tellin’ ye aboot wi’ auld Dill’s twa legs wi’ his trews rolled abune th’ knee, would make th’ deil himsel’ laugh, by cripes it would. An’ by crikey, he’s got sic’ grreat legs, too. Oor auld pairson hasna got legs near like them. We keep him too beggarin’ puir tae let them get as fat as Dill Mackay’s. Cripes, he maun eat an awfu’ lot tae get legs like what he has. Mine are pretty big anes——”

Duncan was interrupted by the waiter enquiring if he’d take plum-pudding or rice pudding.

“Weel,” he said, “Ah’m no a beggarin’ Chinaman. I’ll hae a lump o’ ye’re plum-puddin’.”

Peter said he’d have some rice pudding.

“By cripes!” Duncan said, staring solemnly at Peter, “ye’ll hae tae eat it wi’ twa lang sticks!”

Peter’s eye started to dance with painful apprehension, and he gasped:

“Eh?”

“Ye will that, Peter!” and the solemnity of Duncan’s face increased the other’s feelings of apprehension.

“Oh, here; heigh! heigh!” Peter called to the departing waiter, “I’ll have plum-pudding, too!”

Duncan laughed inwardly at the simplicity of Peter.

“I don’t want any of their sticks,” Peter growled in a determined sort of way.

“It’s a gude job ye had me wi’ ye, Peter,” Duncan said, slyly, “or ye wad hae had them, though!”

Peter agreed that it was.

Luncheon over the three were ready to leave.

“That adds a big lump tae th’ expense o’ my trip doon here, Dashwood,” Duncan said, with a sorrowful look on his face as he regarded his damaged hat reflectively.

“But hadn’t yow better make haste an’ buy anoother yun,” replied old John, “yow might as well go bare head as wear that!”

Duncan thought hard for a while.

“Ah’ll telt ye what Ah’ll dae, Dashwood,” he said, with a roguish look in his eye, “Ah’ll toss ye tae see whither ye pey for th’ three dinners or buy me a new hat,” and he took out a silver coin and began spinning it in the air.

Old John was in sporting humour. “Spin yow th’ coin, then,” he said.

“Wha’ ever wins takes th’ choice,” Duncan explained, as he twirled the coin.

“Heads!” cried old John excitedly.

“Gosh, no! it’s a bloomin’ tail!” shouted Duncan, securing the coin again. “Ye’ve tae buy me a new hat, Dashwood.”

Peter laughed and jeered at his parent for having lost.

Old John accepted the verdict in silence.

Duncan paid three shillings in settlement of the bill of fare, and off they trooped into the street again.

“By crikey!” Duncan said, as they approached a draper’s shop, “that’s the first time I ever won a wager!”

A few steps further on and a shopman in a long-tailed coat greeted them as lost brothers.

Old John acted as spokesman.

“This way, sir,” and the shopman led the way past piles of drapery and goods of all descriptions to a small counter at the far end of the building, where he introduced old John to a pale, youthful counter-hand.

McClure and Peter loitered in the rear, examining the general display.

“Listen here, lad,” old John whispered hoarsely to the pale, youthful counter-hand, “Ah only wants a shellin’ hat. I don’t want any other kahnd!”

“About what size, sir?”

“The biggest yow can get. It’s to fit mah friend comin’ along there,” and he pointed down the floor to the burly McClure.

“We have a line of shilling hats, sir,” said the counter-hand, “but I couldn’t recommend them. If——”

“It doesn’t matter what they be lahke so long as they’re only a shellin’,” old John interrupted eagerly.

The counter-jumper went away and returned with a pile of flimsy felt hats and stacked them on the counter.

Old John beckoned Duncan forward.

Duncan breasted the counter and breathed heavily on the display of head-gear.

“Now, dinna ye buy anything that’s rreal dear, Dashwood,” he said, as though his conscience was smiting him.

Old John winked at the counter-hand. The counter-hand seemed to sum up the situation, and assured Duncan that “they were a very reasonable line.”

Duncan selected one from the pile, and, removing his own, fitted it on his head.

“By crikey!” he said, “th’ vera first fits me like a glove.”

“And it suits yower complexion,” old John remarked.

“There’s a glass there, sir,” from the counter-hand.

Duncan turned and surveyed himself from head to toe in a large mirror.

“Crikey!” he remarked philosophically, “I never thocht I was sae fat as that.” Then, as he straightened the hat and pulled it well over his ears. “This one’ll do gran’ if it’s nae costin’ a lot o’ money.”

“I don’t think you’ll find it too dear, sir,” the counter-hand said reassuringly.

“Oh, Ah have na got tae pay for it,” Duncan said, with a pleased laugh. “I won it i’ a toss.”

Old John winked at Peter. Peter had a vague sort of idea that there was a joke lurking somewhere about his parent, but he couldn’t exactly locate it.

“Is there anything else, sir?” asked the counter-hand, as he handed old John a slip for the amount of his purchase.

“Ye’ll get nae mair oot o’ him th’ day,” Duncan informed the shopman, with a chuckle.

The counter-hand smiled and bowed, and his custom departed.

When they reached the street, Duncan said:

“I don’t want tae be too harrd on ye, Dashwood; an’ sae as tae make things a little bit even I think th’ three o’ us’ll gang an’ hae a drink o’ something.”

Old John consented, and the three of them marched into the nearest hotel and drank eighteenpennorth, for which Duncan promptly paid.

“That clears ma conscience a bit anyway,” Duncan said, with a feeling of satisfaction, as they reached the street again.

Old John winked at Peter, and Peter felt more mysterious than ever as to the whereabouts of the suspected joke.

“Weel, noo,” McClure said, “I’ve got a lot o’ things tae look after yet, sae I hae’d better gang awa’. I’ll call roon’ though sometime and see ye a’ at yer pub.”

“Well, yow had better take this with yow,” old John said, handing Duncan the shopman’s slip for the price of the hat.

“Oh, by crikey, yes,” Duncan said, putting the slip into his vest pocket. “It’ll do when I get hame tae show th’ wife hoo I got th’ best o’ auld John Dashwood,” and off Duncan wobbled along the street.

“Hoh! hoh! hoh! Hoh! hoh-h-h!” laughed old John as he and Peter went off the other way. “Do you know how much Ah paid for the hat, lad?”

Peter hadn’t the slightest idea.

“A shellin’!”

“Hah! hah! hah! Hah! hah!” and Peter jumped about and slapped himself on the knee and attracted the attention of the police and passers-by. “By George it takes you, father! It takes you! I knew you had something on!”