'Come out on Thursday night, and dine with me,' says
he, in his big way. So here I went out to see him. I can tell you he's a
warmer! I never saw a man eat so much in all my born days--but I suppose
he would be having more on his table than usual to show off a bit,
knowing us Barbie boys would be writing home about it all. And drink!
D'ye know, he began with a whole half tumbler of whisky, and how many
more he had I really should _not_ like to say! And he must be used to
it, too, for it seemed to have no effect on him whatever. And then he
smoked and smoked--two great big cigars after we had finished eating,
and then 'Damn it,' says he--he's an awful man to swear--'damn it,' he
says, 'there's no satisfaction in cigars; I must have a pipe,' and he
actually smoked _four_ pipes before I came away! I noticed the cigars
were called 'Estorellas--Best Quality,' and when I was in last Saturday
night getting an ounce of shag at the wee shoppie round the corner, I
asked the price of 'these Estorellas.' 'Ninepence a piece!' said the
bodie. Just imagine Jock Allan smoking eighteen-pence, and not being
satisfied! He's up in the world since he used to shaw turnips at
Loranogie for sixpence a day! But he'll come down as quick if he keeps
on at yon rate. He made a great phrase with me; but though it keeps down
one's weekly bill to get a meal like yon--I declare I wasn't hungry for
two days--for all that I'll go very little about him. He'll be the kind
that borrows money very fast--one of those harum-scarum ones!"

Criticism like that is a boomerang that comes back to hit the emitting
skull with a hint of its kindred woodenness. It reveals the writer more
than the written of. Allan was a bigger man than you would gather from
Wilson's account of his Gargantuan revelry. He had a genius for
mathematics--a gift which crops up, like music, in the most unexpected
corners--and from plough-boy and herd he had become an actuary in Auld
Reekie. Wilson had no need to be afraid, the meagre fool, for his host
could have bought him and sold him.

Allan had been in love with young Gourlay's mother when she herself was
a gay young fliskie at Tenshillingland, but his little romance was soon
ended when Gourlay came and whisked her away. But she remained the one
romance of his life. Now in his gross and jovial middle age he idealized
her in memory (a sentimentalist, of course--he was Scotch); he never saw
her in her scraggy misery to be disillusioned; to