nature--at least
mine.

Occasionally the worm turned, and then a good many articles of furniture
were overset; and the Misses Hope, who resided beneath us, knocked up
through the ceiling with the tongs, whereupon the landlady and her
daughter came in armed with the poker and a long-handled broom to
promote peace.

But after the affair of the squirt Almond and I took counsel, and Almond
said (for Professor Jeeming Flenkin had discovered on the back of a
careful drawing of an engine wheel a caricature of himself pointing with
index-finger and saying, "Very smutty!") that he would stand this sort
of thing no longer.

So we resolved to work a sell on Mac which he would not forget to his
dying day. To effect this we took our landlady and our landlady's
daughter into the plot, and the matter was practically complete when Mac
came home. We heard him whistling up the stairs. The engineer was
drawing a cherub in Indian ink. The arts student was reading a text-book
of geology. The landlady and her daughter were busy about their work in
their own quarters. All was peace.

The key clicked in the lock, and then the whistle stopped as Mac
entered.

The landlady met him at the door. She gazed anxiously and maternally at
his face. She seemed surprised also, and a trifle agitated.

"Dear me, Maister Mac, what's the maitter? Ye're no' lookin' weel."

Mac was a little surprised, but not alarmed.

"There is nothing the matter, Mrs. Christison," said he lightly.

"Eh, Teena, come here," she cried to her daughter.

Teena came hurriedly at her mother's call. But as she looked upon Mac
the fashion of her countenance changed.

"Are you not well?" she said, peering anxiously into the pupils of Mac's
eyes.

Such attentions are flattering, and Mac, being a squire of dames, was
desirous of making the most of it.

"Well, I was not feeling quite up to the mark, but I daresay it'll pass
off," he said diplomatically.

"You must not be working so hard. You will kill yourself one of these
days."

For which we hope and trust she may be forgiven, though it is a good
deal to hope.

"Where do you feel it most, Mr. Mac?" then inquired Teena tenderly.

Mac is of opinion that, if anywhere, he feels it worst in his head, but
his chest is also paining him a little.

"Gang richt awa' in, my laddie," says the landlady, "an' lie doon and
rest ye on the sofa, an' I'll be ben the noo wi' something till ye!"

Mac comes in with a slightly scar