“That’s about the size of it,” said Custer, leaning back in his chair easily with an approving glance at the young man. “And I don’t know if that ain’t the way to work the thing now.”

The consul stared hopelessly from the one to the other. It had always seemed possible that this dreadful mania might develop into actual insanity, and he had little doubt but that the younger man’s brain was slightly affected. But this did not account for the delusion and expectations of the elder. Harry Custer, as the consul remembered him, was a level-headed, practical miner, whose leaning to adventure and excitement had not prevented him from being a cool speculator, and he had amassed more than a competency by reason of his judicious foresight and prompt action. Yet he was evidently under the glamour of this madman, although outwardly as lazily self-contained as ever.

“Do you mean to tell me,” said the consul in a suppressed voice, “that you two have come here equipped only with a statement of facts and a family Bible, and that you expect to take advantage of a feudal enthusiasm which no longer exists—and perhaps never did exist out of the pages of romance—as a means of claiming estates whose titles have long since been settled by law, and can be claimed only under that tenure? Surely I have misunderstood you. You cannot be in earnest.”

“Honest Injun,” said Custer, nodding his head lazily. “We mean it, but not jest that way you’ve put it. F’r instance, it ain’t only us two. This yer thing, ole pard, we’re runnin’ as a syndicate.”

“A syndicate?” echoed the consul.

“A syndicate,” repeated Custer. “Half the boys that were at Eagle Camp are in it, and two of Malcolm’s neighbors from Kentucky—the regular old Scotch breed like himself; for you know that MacCorkle County was settled by them old Scotch Covenanters, and the folks are Scotch Presbyterians to this day. And for the matter of that, the Eagle boys that are in it are of Scotch descent, or a kind of blend, you know; in fact, I’m half Scotch myself—or Irish,” he added thoughtfully. “So you see that settles your argument about any local opinion, for if them Scots don’t know their own people, who does?”

“May I ask,” said the consul, with a desperate attempt to preserve his composure, “what you are proposing to do?”

“Well,” said Custer, settling himself comfortably back in his chair again, “that depends. Do you remember the time that we jumped them Mexican claims on the North Fork—the time them greasers wanted to take in the whole river-bank because they’d found gold on one of the upper bars? Seems to me we jest went peaceful-like over there one moonshiny night, and took up THEIR stakes and set down OURS. Seems to me YOU were one of the party.”

“That was in our own country,” returned the consul hastily, “and was an indefensible act, even in a lawless frontier civilization. But you are surely not mad enough even to conceive of such a thing HERE!”

“Keep your hair on, Jack,” said Custer lazily. “What’s the matter with constitutional methods, eh? Do you remember the time when we didn’t like Pueblo rules, and we laid out Eureka City on their lines, and whooped up the Mexicans and diggers to elect mayor and aldermen, and put the city front on Juanita Creek, and then corraled it for water lots? Seems to me you were county clerk then. Now who’s to keep Dick Macgregor and Joe Hamilton, that are both up the Nile now, from droppin’ in over here to see Malcolm in his own house? Who’s goin’ to object to Wallace or Baird, who are on this side, doin’ the Eytalian lakes, from comin’ here on their way home; or Watson and Moore and Timley, that are livin’ over in Paris, from joinin’ the boys in givin’ Malcolm a housewarmin’ in his old home? What’s to keep the whole syndicate from gatherin’ at Kelpie Island up here off the west coast, among the tombs of Malcolm’s ancestors, and fixin’ up things generally with the clan?”

“Only one thing,” said the consul, with a gravity which he nevertheless felt might be a mistaken attitude. “You shouldn’t have told ME about it. For if, as your old friend, I cannot keep you from committing an unconceivable folly, as the American consul here it will be my first duty to give notice to our legation, and perhaps warn the authorities. And you may be sure I will do it.”

To his surprise Custer leaned forward and pressed his hand with an expression of cheerful relief. “That’s so, old pard; I reckoned on it. In fact, I told Malcolm that that would be about your gait. Of course you couldn’t do otherwise. And it would have been playin’ it rather low down on you to have left you out in the cold—without even THAT show in the game. For what you will do in warnin’ the other fellows, don’t you see, will just waken up the clan. It’s better than a campaign circular.”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” said the consul, with a half-hysterical laugh. “But we won’t consider so lamentable a contingency. Come and dine with me, both of you, and we’ll discuss the only thing worth discussing,—your LEGAL rights,—and you can tell me your whole story, which, by the way, I haven’t heard.”

“Sorry, Jack, but it can’t be done,” said Custer, with his first approach to seriousness of manner. “You see, we’d made up our mind not to come here again after this first call. We ain’t goin’ to compromise you.”

“I am the best judge of that,” returned the consul dryly. Then suddenly changing his manner, he grasped Custer’s hands with both his own. “Come, Harry,” he said earnestly; “I will not believe that this is not a joke, but I beg of you to promise me one thing,—do not move a step further in this matter without legal counsel. I will give you a letter to a legal friend of mine—a man of affairs, a man of the world, and a Scot as typical, perhaps, as any you have mentioned. State your LEGAL case to him—only that; but his opinion will show you also, if I am not mistaken, the folly of your depending upon any sectional or historical sentiment in this matter.”

Without waiting for a reply, he sat down and hastily wrote a few lines to a friendly local magnate. When he had handed the note to Custer, the latter looked at the address, and showed it to his young companion.

“Same name, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Yes,” responded Mr. McHulish.

“Do you know him?” asked the consul, evidently surprised.

“We don’t, but he’s a friend of one of the Eagle boys. I reckon we would have seen him anyhow; but we’ll agree with you to hold on until we do. It’s a go. Goodby, old pard! So long.”

They both shook the consul’s hand, and departed, leaving him staring at the fog into which they had melted as if they were unreal shadows of the past.

II

The next morning the fog had given way to a palpable, horizontally driving rain, which wet the inside as well as the outside of umbrellas, and caused them to be presented at every conceivable angle as they drifted past the windows of the consulate. There was a tap at the door, and a clerk entered.

“Ye will be in to Sir James MacFen?”

The consul nodded, and added, “Show him in here.”

It was the magnate to whom he had sent the note the previous day, a man of large yet slow and cautious nature, learned and even pedantic, yet far-sighted and practical; very human and hearty in social intercourse, which, however, left him as it found him,—with no sentimental or unbusiness-like entanglements. The consul had known him sensible and sturdy at board meetings and executive councils; logical and convincing at political gatherings; decorous and grave in the kirk; and humorous and jovial at festivities, where perhaps later in the evening, in company with others, hands were clasped over a libation lyrically defined as a “right guid williewaught.” On one of these occasions they had walked home together, not without some ostentation of steadiness; yet when MacFen’s eminently respectable front door had closed upon him, the consul was perfectly satisfied that a distinctly proper and unswerving man of business would issue from it the next morning.

“Ay, but it’s a soft day,” said Sir James, removing his gloves. “Ye’ll not be gadding about in this weather.”

“You got my note of introduction, I suppose?” said the consul, when the momentous topic of the weather was exhausted.

“Oh, ay.”

“And you saw the gentlemen?”

“Ay.”

“And what’s your opinion of—his claims?”

“He’s a fine lad—that Malcolm—a fine type of a lad,” said Sir James, with an almost too effusive confidence. “Ye’ll be thinking so yourself—no doubt? Ay, it’s wonderful to consider the preservation of type so long after its dispersal in other lands. And it’s a strange and wonderful country that of yours, with its plantations—as one might say—of homogeneity unimpaired for so many years, and keeping the old faith too—and all its strange survivals. Ay, and that Kentucky, where his land is—it will be a rich State! It’s very instructing and interesting to hear his account of that remarkable region they call ‘the blue grass country,’ and the stock they raise there. I’m obliged to ye, my friend, for a most edifying and improving evening.”

“But his claim—did he not speak of that?”

“Oh, ay. And that Mr. Custer—he’s a grand man, and an amusing one. Ye’ll be great comrades, you and he! Man! it was delightful to hear him tell of the rare doings and the bit fun ye two had in the old times. Eh, sir, but who’d think that of the proper American consul at St. Kentigern!” And Sir James leaned back in his chair, and bestowed an admiring smile on that official.

The consul thought he began to understand this evasion. “Then you don’t think much of Mr. McHulish’s claim?” he said.

“I’m not saying that.”

“But do you really think a claim based upon a family Bible and a family likeness a subject for serious consideration?”

“I’m not saying THAT either, laddie.”

“Perhaps he has confided to you more fully than he has to me, or possibly you yourself knew something in corroboration of his facts.”

His companion had evidently no desire to be communicative. But the consul had heard enough to feel that he was justified in leaving the matter in his hands. He had given him fair warning. Yet, nevertheless, he would be even more explicit.

“I do not know,” he began, “whether this young McHulish confided to you his great reliance upon some peculiar effect of his presence among the tenants, and of establishing his claim to the property by exciting the enthusiasm of the clan. It certainly struck me that he had some rather exaggerated ideas, borrowed, perhaps, from romances he’d read, like Don Quixote his books of chivalry. He seems to believe in the existence of a clan loyalty, and the actual survival of old feudal instincts and of old feudal methods in the Highlands. He appears to look upon himself as a kind of local Prince Charlie, and, by Jove! I’ve an idea he’s almost as crazy.”

“And why should he na believe in his own kith and kin?” said Sir James, quickly, with a sudden ring in his voice, and a dialectical freedom quite distinct from his former deliberate and cautious utterance. “The McHulishes were chieftains before America was discovered, and many’s the time they overran the border before they went as far as that. If there’s anything in blood and loyalty, it would be strange if they did na respond. And I can tell ye, ma frien’, there’s more in the Hielands than any ‘romancer,’ as ye call them,—ay, even Scott hissel’, and he was but an Edinboro’ man,—ever dreamed of. Don’t fash yoursel’ about that. And you and me’ll not agree about Prince Charlie. Some day I’ll tell ye, ma frien’, mair aboot that bonnie laddie than ye’ll gather from your partisan historians. Until then ye’ll be wise when ye’ll be talking to Scotchmen not to be expressing your Southern prejudices.”

Intensely surprised and amused at this sudden outbreak of enthusiasm on the part of the usually cautious lawyer, the consul could not refrain from accenting it by a marked return to practical business.

“I shall be delighted to learn more about Prince Charlie,” he said, smiling, “but just now his prototype—if you’ll allow me to call him so—is a nearer topic, and for the present, at least until he assume his new titles and dignities, has a right to claim my protection, and I am responsible for him as an American citizen. Now, my dear friend, is there really any property, land, or title of any importance involved in his claim, and what and where, in Heaven’s name, is it? For I assure you I know nothing practical about it, and cannot make head or tail of it.”

Sir James resumed his slow serenity, and gathered up his gloves. “Ay, there’s a great deer-forest in Ballochbrinkie, and there’s part of Loch Phillibeg in Cairngormshire, and there’s Kelpie Island off Moreovershire. Ay, there’s enough land when the crofters are cleared off, and the small sheep-tenants evicted. It will be a grand property then.”

The consul stared. “The crofters and tenants evicted!” he repeated. “Are they not part of the clan, and loyal to the McHulish?”

“The McHulish,” said Sir James with great deliberation, “hasn’t set foot there for years. They’d be burning him in effigy.”

“But,” said the astonished consul, “that’s rather bad for the expectant heir—and the magic of the McHulish presence.”

“I’m not saying that,” returned Sir James cautiously. “Ye see he can be making better arrangements with the family on account of it.”

“With the family?” repeated the consul. “Then does he talk of compromising?”

“I mean they would be more likely to sell for a fair consideration, and he’d be better paying money to them than the lawyers. The syndicate will be rich, eh? And I’m not saying the McHulish wouldn’t take Kentucky lands in exchange. It’s a fine country, that blue grass district.”

The consul stared at Sir James so long that a faint smile came into the latter’s shrewd eyes; at which the consul smiled, too. A vague air of relief and understanding seemed to fill the apartment.

“Oh, ay,” continued Sir James, drawing on his gloves with easy deliberation, “he’s a fine lad that Malcolm, and it’s a praiseworthy instinct in him to wish to return to the land of his forebears, and take his place again among them. And I’m noticing, Mr. Consul, that a great many of your countrymen are doing the same. Eh, yours is a gran’ country of progress and ceevel and religious liberty, but for a’ that, as Burns says, it’s in your blood to turn to the auld home again. And it’s a fine thing to have the money to do it—and, I’m thinking, money well spent all around. Good-morning. Eh, but I’m forgetting that I wanted to ask you to dine with me and Malcolm, and your Mr. Custer, and Mr. Watson, who will be one of your syndicate, and whom I once met abroad. But ye’ll get a bit note of invitation, with the day, from me later.”

The consul remembered that Custer had said that one of the “Eagle boys” had known Sir James. This was evidently Watson. He smiled again, but this time Sir James responded only in a general sort of way, as he genially bowed himself out of the room.

The consul watched his solid and eminently respectable figure as it passed the window, and then returned to his desk, still smiling. First of all he was relieved. What had seemed to him a wild and reckless enterprise, with possibly some grim international complications on the part of his compatriots, had simply resolved itself into an ordinary business speculation—the ethics of which they had pretty equally divided with the local operators. If anything, it seemed that the Scotchman would get the best of the bargain, and that, for once at least, his countrymen were deficient in foresight. But that was a matter between the parties, and Custer himself would probably be the first to resent any suggestion of the kind from the consul. The vision of the McHulish burned in effigy by his devoted tenants and retainers, and the thought that the prosaic dollars of his countrymen would be substituted for the potent presence of the heir, tickled, it is to be feared, the saturnine humor of the consul. He had taken an invincible dislike to the callow representative of the McHulish, who he felt had in some extraordinary way imposed upon Custer’s credulity. But then he had apparently imposed equally upon the practical Sir James. The thought of this sham ideal of feudal and privileged incompetency being elevated to actual position by the combined efforts of American republicans and hard-headed Scotch dissenters, on whom the soft Scotch mists fell from above with equal impartiality, struck him as being very amusing, and for some time thereafter lightened the respectable gloom of his office. Other engagements prevented his attendance at Sir James’s dinner, although he was informed afterward that it had passed off with great eclat, the later singing of “Auld lang Syne,” and the drinking of the health of Custer and Malcolm with “Hieland honors.” He learned also that Sir James had invited Custer and Malcolm to his lacustrine country-seat in the early spring. But he learned nothing more of the progress of Malcolm’s claim, its details, or the manner in which it was prosecuted. No one else seemed to know anything about it; it found no echo in the gossip of the clubs, or in the newspapers of St. Kentigern. In the absence of the parties connected with it, it began to assume to him the aspect of a half-humorous romance. He often found himself wondering if there had been any other purpose in this quest or speculation than what had appeared on the surface, it seemed so inadequate in result. It would have been so perfectly easy for a wealthy syndicate to buy up a much more valuable estate. He disbelieved utterly in the sincerity of Malcolm’s sentimental attitude. There must be some other reason—perhaps not known even to the syndicate.

One day he thought that he had found it. He had received a note addressed from one of the principal hotels, but bearing a large personal crest on paper and envelope. A Miss Kirkby, passing through St. Kentigern on her way to Edinburgh, desired to see the consul the next day, if he would appoint an hour at the consulate; or, as her time was limited, she would take it as a great favor if he would call at her hotel. Although a countrywoman, her name might not be so well known to him as those of her “old friends” Harry Custer, Esq., and Sir Malcolm McHulish. The consul was a little surprised; the use of the title—unless it referred to some other McHulish—would seem to indicate that Malcolm’s claim was successful. He had, however, no previous knowledge of the title of “Sir” in connection with the estate, and it was probable that his fair correspondent—like most of her countrywomen—was more appreciative than correct in her bestowal of dignities. He determined to waive his ordinary business rules, and to call upon her at once, accepting, as became his patriotism, that charming tyranny which the American woman usually reserves exclusively for her devoted countrymen.

She received him with an affectation of patronage, as if she had lately become uneasily conscious of being in a country where there were distinctions of class. She was young, pretty, and tastefully dressed; the national feminine adaptability had not, however, extended to her voice and accent. Both were strongly Southwestern, and as she began to speak she seemed to lose her momentary affectation.

“It was mighty good of you to come and see me, for the fact is, I didn’t admire going to your consulate—not one bit. You see, I’m a Southern girl, and never was ‘reconstructed’ either. I don’t hanker after your Gov’ment. I haven’t recognized it, and don’t want to. I reckon I ain’t been under the flag since the wah. So you see, I haven’t any papers to get authenticated, nor any certificates to ask for, and ain’t wanting any advice or protection. I thought I’d be fair and square with you from the word ‘go.’”

Nothing could be more fascinating and infectious than the mirthful ingenuousness which accompanied and seemed to mitigate this ungracious speech, and the consul was greatly amused, albeit conscious that it was only an attitude, and perhaps somewhat worn in sentiment. He knew that during the war of the rebellion, and directly after it, Great Britain was the resort of certain Americans from the West as well as from the South who sought social distinction by the affectation of dissatisfaction with their own government or the ostentatious simulation of enforced exile; but he was quite unprepared for this senseless protraction of dead and gone issues. He ventured to point out with good-humored practicality that several years had elapsed since the war, that the South and North were honorably reconciled, and that he was legally supposed to represent Kentucky as well as New York. “Your friends,” he added smilingly, “Mr. Custer and Mr. McHulish, seemed to accept the fact without any posthumous sentiment.”

“I don’t go much on that,” she said with a laugh. “I’ve been living in Paris till maw—who’s lying down upstairs—came over and brought me across to England for a look around. And I reckon Malcolm’s got to keep touch with you on account of his property.”

The consul smiled. “Ah, then, I hope you can tell me something about THAT, for I really don’t know whether he has established his claim or not.”

“Why,” returned the girl with naive astonishment, “that was just what I was going to ask YOU. He reckoned you’d know all about it.”

“I haven’t heard anything of the claim for two months,” said the consul; “but from your reference to him as ‘Sir Malcolm,’ I presumed you considered it settled. Though, of course, even then he wouldn’t be ‘Sir Malcolm,’ and you might have meant somebody else.”

“Well, then, Lord Malcolm—I can’t get the hang of those titles yet.”

“Neither ‘Lord’ nor ‘Sir’; you know the estate carries no title whatever with it,” said the consul smilingly.

“But wouldn’t he be the laird of something or other, you know?”

“Yes; but that is only a Scotch description, not a title. It’s not the same as Lord.”

The young girl looked at him with undisguised astonishment. A half laugh twitched the corners of her mouth. “Are you sure?” she said.

“Perfectly,” returned the consul, a little impatiently; “but do I understand that you really know nothing more of the progress of the claim?”

Miss Kirkby, still abstracted by some humorous astonishment, said quickly: “Wait a minute. I’ll just run up and see if maw’s coming down. She’d admire to see you.” Then she stopped, hesitated, and as she rose added, “Then a laird’s wife wouldn’t be Lady anything, anyway, would she?”

“She certainly would acquire no title merely through her marriage.”

The young girl laughed again, nodded, and disappeared. The consul, amused yet somewhat perplexed over the naive brusqueness of the interview, waited patiently. Presently she returned, a little out of breath, but apparently still enjoying some facetious retrospect, and said, “Maw will be down soon.” After a pause, fixing her bright eyes mischievously on the consul, she continued:—

“Did you see much of Malcolm?”

“I saw him only once.”

“What did you think of him?”

The consul in so brief a period had been unable to judge.

“You wouldn’t think I was half engaged to him, would you?”

The consul was obliged again to protest that in so short an interview he had been unable to conceive of Malcolm’s good fortune.

“I know what you mean,” said the girl lightly. “You think he’s a crank. But it’s all over now; the engagement’s off.”

“I trust that this does not mean that you doubt his success?”

The lady shrugged her shoulders disdainfully. “That’s all right enough, I reckon. There’s a hundred thousand dollars in the syndicate. Maw put in twenty thousand, and Custer’s bound to make it go—particularly as there’s some talk of a compromise. But Malcolm’s a crank, and I reckon if it wasn’t for the compromise the syndicate wouldn’t have much show. Why, he didn’t even know that the McHulishes had no title.”

“Do you think he has been suffering under a delusion in regard to his relationship?”

“No; he was only a fool in the way he wanted to prove it. He actually got these boys to think it could be filibustered into his possession. Had a sort of idea of ‘a rising in the Highlands,’ you know, like that poem or picture—which is it? And those fool boys, and Custer among them, thought it would be great fun and a great spree. Luckily, maw had the gumption to get Watson to write over about it to one of his friends, a Mr.—Mr.—MacFen, a very prominent man.”

“Perhaps you mean Sir James MacFen,” suggested the consul. “He’s a knight. And what did HE say?” he added eagerly.

“Oh, he wrote a most sensible letter,” returned the lady, apparently mollified by the title of Watson’s adviser, “saying that there was little doubt, if any, that if the American McHulishes wanted the old estate they could get it by the expenditure of a little capital. He offered to make the trial; that was the compromise they’re talking about. But he didn’t say anything about there being no ‘Lord’ McHulish.”

“Perhaps he thought, as you were Americans, you didn’t care for THAT,” said the consul dryly.

“That’s no reason why we shouldn’t have it if it belonged to us, or we chose to pay for it,” said the lady pertly.

“Then your changed personal relations with Mr. McHulish is the reason why you hear so little of his progress or his expectations?”

“Yes; but he don’t know that they are changed, for we haven’t seen him since we’ve been here, although they say he’s here, and hiding somewhere about.”

“Why should he be hiding?”

The young girl lifted her pretty brows. “Maybe he thinks it’s mysterious. Didn’t I tell you he was a crank?” Yet she laughed so naively, and with such sublime unconsciousness of any reflection on herself, that the consul was obliged to smile too.

“You certainly do not seem to be breaking your heart as well as your engagement,” he said.

“Not much—but here comes maw. Look here,” she said, turning suddenly and coaxingly upon him, “if she asks you to come along with us up north, you’ll come, won’t you? Do! It will be such fun!”

“Up north?” repeated the consul interrogatively.

“Yes; to see the property. Here’s maw.”

A more languid but equally well-appointed woman had entered the room. When the ceremony of introduction was over, she turned to her daughter and said, “Run away, dear, while I talk business with—er—this gentleman,” and, as the girl withdrew laughingly, she half stifled a reminiscent yawn, and raised her heavy lids to the consul.

“You’ve had a talk with my Elsie?”

The consul confessed to having had that pleasure.

“She speaks her mind,” said Mrs. Kirkby wearily, “but she means well, and for all her flightiness her head’s level. And since her father died she runs me,” she continued with a slight laugh. After a pause, she added abstractedly, “I suppose she told you of her engagement to young McHulish?”

“Yes; but she said she had broken it.”

Mrs. Kirkby lifted her eyebrows with an expression of relief. “It was a piece of girl and boy foolishness, anyway,” she said. “Elsie and he were children together at MacCorkleville,—second cousins, in fact,—and I reckon he got her fancy excited over his nobility, and his being the chief of the McHulishes. Of course Custer will manage to get something for the shareholders out of it,—I never knew him to fail in a money speculation yet,—but I think that’s about all. I had an idea of going up with Elsie to take a look at the property, and I thought of asking you to join us. Did Elsie tell you? I know she’d like it—and so would I.”

For all her indolent, purposeless manner, there was enough latent sincerity and earnestness in her request to interest the consul. Besides, his own curiosity in regard to this singularly supported claim was excited, and here seemed to be an opportunity of satisfying it. He was not quite sure, either, that his previous antagonism to his fair countrywoman’s apparent selfishness and snobbery was entirely just. He had been absent from America a long time; perhaps it was he himself who had changed, and lost touch with his compatriots. And yet the demonstrative independence and recklessness of men like Custer were less objectionable to, and less inconsistent with, his American ideas than the snobbishness and almost servile adaptability of the women. Or was it possible that it was only a weakness of the sex, which no republican nativity or education could eliminate? Nevertheless he looked up smilingly.

“But the property is, I understand, scattered about in various places,” he said.

“Oh, but we mean to go only to Kelpie Island, where there is the ruin of an old castle. Elsie must see that.”

The consul thought it might be amusing. “By all means let us see that. I shall be delighted to go with you.”

His ready and unqualified assent appeared to relieve and dissipate the lady’s abstraction. She became more natural and confiding; spoke freely of Malcolm’s mania, which she seemed to accept as a hallucination or a conviction with equal cheerfulness, and, in brief, convinced the consul that her connection with the scheme was only the caprice of inexperienced and unaccustomed idleness. He left her, promising to return the next day and arrange for their early departure.

His way home lay through one of the public squares of St. Kentigern, at an hour of the afternoon when it was crossed by working men and women returning to their quarters from the docks and factories. Never in any light a picturesque or even cheery procession, there were days when its unwholesome, monotonous poverty and dull hopelessness of prospect impressed him more forcibly. He remembered how at first the spectacle of barefooted girls and women slipping through fog and mist across the greasy pavement had offended his fresh New World conception of a more tenderly nurtured sex, until his susceptibilities seemed to have grown as callous and hardened as the flesh he looked upon, and he had begun to regard them from the easy local standpoint of a distinct and differently equipped class.

It chanced, also, that this afternoon some of the male workers had added to their usual solidity a singular trance-like intoxication. It had often struck him before as a form of drunkenness peculiar to the St. Kentigern laborers. Men passed him singly and silently, as if following some vague alcoholic dream, or moving through some Scotch mist of whiskey and water. Others clung unsteadily but as silently together, with no trace of convivial fellowship or hilarity in their dull fixed features and mechanically moving limbs. There was something weird in this mirthless companionship, and the appalling loneliness of those fixed or abstracted eyes. Suddenly he was aware of two men who were reeling toward him under the influence of this drug-like intoxication, and he was startled by a likeness which one of them bore to some one he had seen; but where, and under what circumstances, he could not determine. The fatuous eye, the features of complacent vanity and self-satisfied reverie were there, either intensified by drink, or perhaps suggesting it through some other equally hopeless form of hallucination. He turned and followed the man, trying to identify him through his companion, who appeared to be a petty tradesman of a shrewder, more material type. But in vain, and as the pair turned into a side street the consul slowly retraced his steps. But he had not proceeded far before the recollection that had escaped him returned, and he knew that the likeness suggested by the face he had seen was that of Malcolm McHulish.