ritics in his note-book.

The gentleman next him that night at "Manteaux Noirs" would not have
laughed so heartily if he had known why Andrew listened for his address
to the cabman.

The young Scotchman resented people's merriment over nothing; sometimes
he took the Underground Railway just to catch clerks at "Tit-Bits."

One afternoon he saw some way in front of him in Piccadilly a man with
a young head on old shoulders.

Andrew recognized him by the swing of his stick; he could have
identified his plaid among a hundred thousand morning coats. It was
John Stuart Blackie, his favourite professor.

Since the young man graduated, his old preceptor had resigned his
chair, and was now devoting his time to writing sonnets to himself in
the Scotch newspapers.

Andrew could not bear to think of it, and quickened his pace to catch
him up. But Blackie was in great form, humming "Scots wha hae." With
head thrown back, staff revolving and chest inflated, he sang himself
into a martial ecstasy, and, drumming cheerily on the doors with his
fist, strutted along like a band of bagpipers with a clan behind him,
until he had played himself out of Andrew's sight.

Far be it from our intention to maintain that Andrew was invariably
successful. That is not given to any man.

Sometimes his hands slipped.

Had he learned the piano in his younger days this might not have
happened. But if he had been a pianist the president would probably
have wiped him out--and very rightly. There can be no doubt about male
pianists.

Nor was the fault always Andrew's. When the society was founded, many
far-seeing men had got wind of it, and had themselves elected honorary
members before the committee realised what they were after.

This was a sore subject with the president; he shunned discussing it,
and thus Andrew had frequently to discontinue cases after he was well
on with them.

In this way much time was lost.

Andrew was privately thanked by the committee for one suggestion,
which, for all he knows, may yet be carried out. The president had a
wide interest in the press, and on one occasion he remarked to Andrew:

"Think of the snobs and the prigs who would be saved if the 'Saturday
Review' and the 'Spectator' could be induced to cease publication!"

Andrew thought it out, and then produced his scheme.

The battle of the clans on the North Inch of Perth had always seemed to
him a master-stroke of diplomacy.

"Why," he said