d sake!" he went on, scratching his
head, as it seemed to dawn on him, "ye don't happen to belong to the
big hoose up there?"

"I live there," said I.

He leaned over to me quickly. "Have another leg, man,--have it;--dod!
it's your ain, anyway."

"I haven't finished the first yet. Go ahead yourself."

He ate slowly, eying me now and again through the smoke.

"So you're a second son, eh?" he pondered. "Man, ye have my sympathy.
I had the same ill-luck. That's how my brother Angus got the pipes and
I'm a tinker. Although, I wouldna mind being the second son o' a Laird
or a Duke."

"Well, my friend," said I; "that's just where our opinions differ.
Now, I'd sooner be the second son of a rag-and-bone man; a--Perthshire
piper of the name of Robertson; ay! of the devil himself,--than the
second son of an Earl."

"Do ye tell me that now!" he put in, with a cock of his towsled head,
picking up another piece of rabbit.

"You see,--you and these other fellows can do as you like; go where you
like when you like. An Earl's second son has to serve his House. He
has to pave the way and make things smooth for the son and heir. He is
supposed to work the limelight that shines on his elder brother. He is
tolerated, sometimes spoiled and petted, because,--well, because he has
an elder brother who, some day, will be an Earl; but he counts for
little or nothing in the world's affairs.

"Be thankful, sir, you are only the second son of a highland piper."

The tramp reflected for a while.

"Ay, ay!" he philosophised at last, "no doot,--maybe,--just that. I
can see you have your ain troubles and I'm thinkin', maybe, I'm just as
weel the way I am. But it's a queer thing; we aye think the other man
is gettin' the best o' what's goin'. It's the way o' the world."

He was quiet a while. He negotiated the rabbit's head and I watched
him with interest as he extracted every bit of meat from the maze of
bone.

"And you would be the Earl when your father dies, if it wasna for your
brother?" he added.

"Yes!" I answered.

"Man, it must be a dreadful temptation."

"What must be?"

"Och! to keep from puttin' something in his whisky; to keep from
flinging him ower the window or droppin' a flower pot on his heid,
maybe. If my ain father had been an Earl, Angus Robertson would never
have lived to blow the pipes. As it was, it was touch and go wi'
Angus;--for they were the bonny pipes,--the grand, bonny pipes."

"Do you