easant, and he pronounced his words precisely, like a foreigner.

He was very ready to talk, but in defiance of Dr. Johnson's warning,
his talk was all questions. He wanted to know everything about the
neighbourhood--who lived in what houses, what were the distances
between the towns, what harbours would admit what class of vessel.
Smiling agreeably, he put Dickson through a catechism to which he knew
none of the answers. The landlord was called in, and proved more
helpful. But on one matter he was fairly at a loss. The catechist
asked about a house called Darkwater, and was met with a shake of the
head. "I know no sic-like name in this countryside, sir," and the
catechist looked disappointed.

The literary young man said nothing, but ate trout abstractedly, one
eye on his book. The fish had been caught by the anglers in the Loch
o' the Threshes, and phrases describing their capture floated from the
other end of the table. The young man had a second helping, and then
refused the excellent hill mutton that followed, contenting himself
with cheese. Not so Dickson and the catechist. They ate everything
that was set before them, topping up with a glass of port. Then the
latter, who had been talking illuminatingly about Spain, rose, bowed,
and left the table, leaving Dickson, who liked to linger over his
meals, to the society of the ichthyophagous student.

He nodded towards the book. "Interesting?" he asked.

The young man shook his head and displayed the name on the cover.
"Anatole France. I used to be crazy about him, but now he seems rather
a back number." Then he glanced towards the just-vacated chair.
"Australian," he said.

"How d'you know?"

"Can't mistake them. There's nothing else so lean and fine produced on
the globe to-day. I was next door to them at Pozieres and saw them
fight. Lord! Such men! Now and then you had a freak, but most looked
like Phoebus Apollo."

Dickson gazed with a new respect at his neighbour, for he had not
associated him with battle-fields. During the war he had been a
fervent patriot, but, though he had never heard a shot himself, so many
of his friends' sons and nephews, not to mention cousins of his own,
had seen service, that he had come to regard the experience as
commonplace. Lions in Africa and bandits in Mexico seemed to him novel
and romantic things, but not trenches and airplanes which were the
whole world's property. But he could scarcely fit his neighbou