oom.

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