ther score.

On Saturday the bank closed at one o'clock; the staff were to return and
dine at seven, the Queen's birthday falling on the same day for a
sufficient pretext. As the hour approached Fergus made the distressing
discovery that his friend and host had anticipated the festivities with
too free a hand. Macbean was not drunk, but he was perceptibly blunted
and blurred, and Fergus had never seen the pale eyes so watery or the
black skull-cap so much on one side of the venerable head. The lad was
genuinely grieved. A whiskey bottle stood empty on the laden board, and
he had the temerity to pocket the corkscrew while Macbean was gone to
his storeroom for another bottle. A solemn search ensued, and then
Fergus was despatched in haste for a new corkscrew.

"An' look slippy," said Macbean, "or we'll have old Donkin here before
ye get back."

"Not for another three-quarters of an hour," remarked Fergus, looking at
his watch.

"Any minute!" retorted Macbean, with a ribald epithet. "I invited
Donkin, in confidence, to come a good half-hour airly, and I'll tell ye
for why. Donkin must ken, but I'm none so sure o' yon other impident
young squirt. His tongue's too long for his mouth. Donkin or I could
always be behind the counter; anyway, I mean to take his opeenion before
tellin' any other body."

Entertaining his own distrust of the vivacious Fowler, Fergus commended
the decision, and so took his departure by the private entrance. It was
near sundown; a fresh breeze blew along the hard road, puffing cloudlets
of yellow sand into the rosy dusk. Fergus hurried till he was out of
sight, and then idled shamelessly under trees. He was not going on for a
new corkscrew. He was going back to confess boldly where he had found
the old one. And the sight of Donkin in the distance sent him back in
something of a hurry; it was quite enough to have to spend an evening
with the cantankerous cashier.

The bank was practically at one end of the township as then laid out;
two or three buildings there were further on, but they stood altogether
aloof. The bank, for a bank, was sufficiently isolated, and Fergus could
not but congratulate himself on the completion of its ingenious and
unsuspected defences. It only remained to keep the inventor reasonably
sober for the evening, and thereafter to whistle or to pray for
Stingaree. Meanwhile the present was no mean occasion, and Fergus was
glad to see that Macbean had thrown open the officia