Deacon's
care for him and all the Deacon's kindness to me. I believe he only
lives in the thought of the Deacon. There, it is not so long since I was
one with him. But indeed I think we are all Deacon-mad, we Brodies.--Are
we not, daddie dear?

BRODIE (_without, and entering_). You are a mighty magistrate,
Procurator, but you seem to have met your match.

SCENE II

_To these, BRODIE and LAWSON_

MARY (_curtseying_). So, uncle! you have honoured us at last.

LAWSON. _Quam primum_, my dear, _quam primum_.

BRODIE. Well, father, do you know me? (_He sits beside his father, and
takes his hand._)

(OLD BRODIE. William--ay--Deacon. Greater man--than--his father.

BRODIE. You see, Procurator, the news is as fresh to him as it was five
years ago. He was struck down before he got the Deaconship, and lives
his lost life in mine.

LAWSON. Ay, I mind. He was aye ettling after a bit handle to his name.
He was kind of hurt when first they made me Procurator.)

MARY. And what have you been talking of?

LAWSON. Just o' thae robberies, Mary. Baith as a burgher and a Crown
offeecial, I tak' the maist absorbing interest in thae robberies.

LESLIE. Egad, Procurator, and so do I.

BRODIE (_with a quick look at LESLIE_). A dilettante interest,
doubtless! See what it is to be idle.

LESLIE. 'Faith, Brodie, I hardly know how to style it.

BRODIE. At any rate, 'tis not the interest of a victim, or we should
certainly have known of it before; nor a practical tool-mongering
interest, like my own; nor an interest professional and official, like
the Procurator's. You can answer for that, I suppose?

LESLIE. I think I can; if for no more. It's an interest of my own, you
see, and is best described as indescribable, and of no manner of moment
to anybody. (It will take no hurt if we put off its discussion till a
month of Sundays.)

BRODIE. You are more fortunate than you deserve. What do you say,
Procurator?

LAWSON. Ay is he! There's no' a house in Edinburgh safe. The law is
clean helpless, clean helpless! A week syne it was auld Andra Simpson's
in the Lawn-market. Then, naething would set the catamarans but to
forgather privily wi' the Provost's ain butler, and tak' unto themselves
the Provost's ain plate. And the day, information was laid down before
me offeecially that the limmers had made infraction, _vi et clam_, into
Leddy Mar'get Dalziel's, and left her leddyship wi' no' sae muckle's a
spune to sup her parritch wi