el its invigorating influence."

"Talking of vegetables, sir"--Archelaus shifted a canvas bag from his
shoulders to the ground and began to untie the string which bound its
neck.

"Pray take breath," suggested the Lord Proprietor. "At your age--and
with the little exercise you get on Garrison Hill----"

"We don't keep ostriches," said Archelaus, curtly. "But, talking of
vegetables, the Governor sends his compliments to you, sir, and begs
your acceptance of a few choice plants in return for the small clothes
you lent me."

"'Lent' you, Archelaus? 'Gave,' you mean."

"Oh, sir, but--excuse me--I couldn't--there was them ostriches to be
considered."

"It has occurred to me," went on the Lord Proprietor, who was in the
best of moods this morning, "that those--er--breeches might be a trifle
conspicuous--a shade too highly pronounced in pattern--to be worn with
uniform."

"As for that, sir," answered Archelaus, tactfully, "life on the Islands
isn't like active service, where a man has to be careful about exposing
himself to marksmanship."

"In Inverness a pattern like that would excite no comment."

"I've never been there," said Archelaus.

"It--er--harmonises, as it were, with the natural surroundings: with
the loch, the glen, the strath. So with those curious tartans to which
the Scottish highlanders are--er--addicted. Seen by themselves, and to
a sensitive, artistic eye, they appear crude and almost violent in
their contrast of colours; but seen in conjunction with the expanse of
native moorland, the undulating stretches of the heather----"

"'Tis but niggling scenery we have in these parts, to be sure," agreed
Archelaus.

"I have sometimes thought that _mutatis mutandis_ the same may be true
of the bagpipes, the strains of which--'skirl,' I believe, is the
proper expression--are not altogether discordant with the moaning of
the wind over those desolate moors or the cries uttered by their wilder
denizens; though, speaking personally, I never could endure the
instrument."

"Me either," agreed Archelaus again, shuffling a little on his feet, as
the dreadful truth began to dawn on him, that the Lord Proprietor meant
to present him with yet another pair of trousers.

Sir Caesar, however, chose to play for a minute with his benevolent
design.

"There is no more delicate study," he went on, "than that of
acclimatisation. None which requires a nicer union of artistic daring
with artistic judgment, patience, wi