it to
Scrymgeour, who liked elegant furniture. As a smoker, Scrymgeour seemed
the very man to appreciate a pretty, useful little table. Besides, all
I had to do was to send William John down with it. Scrymgeour was out
at the time; but we left it at the side of his fireplace as a pleasant
surprise. Next morning, to my indignation, it was back at the side of
my fireplace, and in the evening Scrymgeour came and upbraided me for
trying, as he most unworthily expressed it, "to palm the thing off on
him." He was no sooner gone than I took the table to pieces to send it
to my brother. I tied the stalk up in brown paper, meaning to get a box
for the other parts. William John sent off the stalk, and for some days
the other pieces littered the floor. My brother wrote me saying he had
received something from me, for which his best thanks; but would I tell
him what it was, as it puzzled everybody? This was his impatient way;
but I made an effort, and sent off the other pieces to him in a hat-box.

That was a year ago, and since then I have only heard the history of
the smoking-table in fragments. My brother liked it immensely; but
he thought it was too luxurious for a married man, so he sent it to
Reynolds, in Edinburgh. Not knowing Reynolds, I cannot say what his
opinion was; but soon afterward I heard of its being in the possession
of Grayson, who was charmed with it, but gave it to Pelle, because it
was hardly in its place in a bachelor's establishment. Later a town man
sent it to a country gentleman as just the thing for the country; and it
was afterward in Liverpool as the very thing for a town. There I thought
it was lost, so far as I was concerned. One day, however, Boyd, a friend
of mine who lives in Glasgow, came to me for a week, and about six hours
afterward he said that he had a present for me. He brought it into my
sitting-room--a bulky parcel--and while he was undoing the cords he told
me it was something quite novel; he had bought it in Glasgow the day
before. When I saw a walnut leg I started; in another two minutes I was
trying to thank Boyd for my own smoking-table. I recognized it by the
dents. I was too much the gentleman to insist on an explanation from
Boyd; but, though it seems a harsh thing to say, my opinion is that
these different persons gave the table away because they wanted to get
rid of it. William John has it now.

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CHAPTER VII.

GILRAY.

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Gilray is an