he's expected back?"

"Day or two," said Frank shortly.

Andrew pondered for a moment.

"Oh?" he remarked at length, and without so much as a good-night he
turned on his heel and walked out of the hotel.

Frank's conscience harassed him for a long time after this interview.
He wished he could be quite certain that his manner towards his brother
was entirely the result of Andrew's disagreeable references to their
father. He would be the most ill-conditioned sweep unkicked, the most
dishonorable sneaking blackguard, if by any chance he had allowed his
luckless passion to prejudice him! He began to wish he were back in
India again. Was this beastly furlough never coming to an end? And so
he drove off in his hansom, alternately sighing and cursing himself,
to watch what he had selected from the pictures in the illustrated
papers as the most sentimental drama in town.

The advantage of living a well-regulated life was never better
illustrated than in the person of his brother Andrew. No qualms of
conscience annoyed him as he drove back economically in his bus. He
knew that he was right, and that people who violated his standards,
and disagreed with him impertinently were wrong; and secure in that
knowledge, he was enabled to hug against his outraged feelings the warm
consolation of a grievance. All through his life this form of moral
hot-water bottle had kept Andrew snug during many a painful night. It is
worth being consistently righteous for the mere privilege of possessing
this invaluable perquisite.

He decided to wait in London for twenty-four hours longer on the chance
of his father returning, and so it happened that he found himself in his
club reading-room on the following afternoon at the hour when the
_Scotsman_ appeared to cheer the exiles from the north. He secured it at
once, and with a consoling sense of homeliness proceeded to turn its
familiar pages. All at once he was galvanized into the rigidity of a
fire-iron--

"Writers to the Signets' Annual Dinner. Remarkable speech by Mr. Heriot
Walkingshaw."

* * * * *

It was a few minutes before he summoned up his courage to read any
further.

* * * * *

"Mr. Walkingshaw began by remarking that it was by the merest
chance he was present among them to-night. He had been so engrossed
by the attractions of London (laughter)--he did not mean what they
meant (renewed laughte