contrast visible between
the upper and lower halves of his face. Hearing his approach she
met him at the door.

"Noo, Sir George," she said, "jist gang up to my room an' hae a
wash, an' pit on the sark ye'll see lyin' upo' the bed; syne come
doon an' hae yer tum'ler comfortable."

George's whole soul was bent upon his drink, but he obeyed as if she
had been twice his mother. By the time he had finished his toilet,
the usual company was assembled, and he appeared amongst them in all
the respectability of a clean shirt and what purity besides the
general adhesiveness of his trade-material would yield to a single
ablution long delayed. They welcomed him all, with nod, or grin, or
merry word, in individual fashion, as each sat measuring out his
whisky, or pounding at the slow-dissolving sugar, or tasting the
mixture with critical soul seated between tongue and palate.

The conversation was for some time very dull, with a strong tendency
to the censorious. For in their circle, not only were the claims of
respectability silently admitted, but the conduct of this and that
man of their acquaintance, or of public note, was pronounced upon
with understood reference to those claims--now with smile of
incredulity or pity, now with headshake regretful or
condemnatory--and this all the time that each was doing his best to
reduce himself to a condition in which the word conduct could no
longer have meaning in reference to him.

All of them, as did their hostess, addressed Galbraith as Sir
George, and he accepted the title with a certain unassuming dignity.
For, if it was not universally known in the city, it was known to
the best lawyers in it, that he was a baronet by direct derivation
from the hand of King James the Sixth.

The fire burned cheerfully, and the kettle making many journeys
between it and the table, things gradually grew more lively.
Stories were told, often without any point, but not therefore
without effect; reminiscences, sorely pulpy and broken at the edges,
were offered and accepted with a laughter in which sober ears might
have detected a strangely alien sound; and adventures were related
in which truth was no necessary element to reception. In the case
of the postman, for instance, who had been dismissed for losing a
bag of letters the week before, not one of those present believed a
word he said; yet as he happened to be endowed with a small stock of
genuine humour, his stories were regarded with mu