mporium, and with the tail of his
eye he could see Wilson peeping from the door and listening to every
word. This would be a hair in Wilson's neck! There were no clerical
compliments for _his_ son! The tables were turned at last.

His father had a generous impulse to John for the bright triumph he had
won the Gourlays. He fumbled in his trouser pocket, and passed him a
sovereign.

"I'm kind o' hard-up," he said, with grim jocosity, "but there's a pound
to keep your pouch. No nonsense now!" he shot at the youth with a loaded
eye. "That's just for use if you happen to be in company. A Gourlay maun
spend as much as the rest o' folk."

"Yes, faither," said the youngster, and Gourlay went away.

That grimly-jocose reference to his poverty was a feature of Gourlay's
talk now, when he spoke of money to his family. It excused the smallness
of his doles, yet led them to believe that he was only joking--that he
had plenty of money if he would only consent to shell it out. And that
was what he wished them to believe. His pride would not allow him to
confess, even to his nearest, that he was a failure in business, and
hampered with financial trouble. Thus his manner of warning them to be
careful had the very opposite effect. "He has heaps o' cash," thought
the son, as he watched the father up the street; "there's no need for a
fellow to be mean."

Flattered (as he fondly imagined) by the Deacon, flattered
by the minister, tipped by his mother, tipped by his father,
hail-fellow-well-met with Pate Wylie--Lord, but young Gourlay was the
fine fellow! Symptoms of swell-head set in with alarming rapidity. He
had a wild tendency to splurge. And, that he might show in a single
afternoon all the crass stupidity of which he was capable, he
immediately allowed himself a veiled insult towards the daughters of the
ex-Provost. They were really nice girls, in spite of their parentage,
and as they came down the street they glanced with shy kindness at the
student from under their broad-brimmed hats. Gourlay raised his in
answer to their nod. But the moment after, and in their hearing, he
yelled blatantly to Swipey Broon to come on and have a drink of beer.
Swipey was a sweep now, for Brown the ragman had added chimney-cleaning
to his other occupations--plurality of professions, you observe, being
one of the features of the life of Barbie. When Swipey turned out of the
Fleckie Road he was as black as the ace of spades, a most disreputable
phi