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 The Scotch are a great people, but they are apt to hang over a joke too long, particularly when no one can see the point but themselves.

"When I rewrite my pamphlet I 'll put it in, McPhee. Only I must know something more first."

McPhee thought for the length of half a cigar, while Janet caught my eye and led it round the room to one new thing after another—the new vine-pattern carpet, the new chiming rustic clock between the models of the Colombo outrigger-boats, the new inlaid sideboard with a purple cut-glass flower-stand, the fender of gilt and brass, and last, the new black-and-gold piano.

"In October o' last year the Board sacked me," began McPhee. "In October o' last year the Breslau came in for winter overhaul. She 'd been runnin' eight months—two hunder an' forty days—an' I was three days makin' up my indents, when she went to dry-dock. All told, mark you, it was this side o' three hunder pound—to be preceese, two hunder an' eighty-six pound four shillings. There 's not another man could ha' nursed the Breslau for eight months to that tune. Never again—never again! They may send their boats to the bottom, for aught I care."

"There 's no need," said Janet, softly. "We 're done wi' Holdock, Steiner & Chase."

"It 's irritatin', Janet, it 's just irritatin'. I ha' been justified from first to last, as the world knows, but—but I canna forgie 'em. Ay, wisdom is justified o' her children; an' any other man than me wad ha' made the indent eight hunder. Hay was our skipper—ye 'll have met him. They shifted him to the Torgau, an' bade