"Uphill work that, I should think."

"Uphill? Downhill! Man, it's degrading. Do you know what I was doing in that Museum this morning?"

"What?"

"Have you heard tell of a man they call Dean Ramsay?"

"Let me see--yes. He was a sort of Scottish Sidney Smith, wasn't he?"

"That is the man. Well, he collected most of the good stories in Scotland and put them in a book. I was copying a few of them out; and I shall father them on to folk that the public wants to hear about. I get a guinea a column for that."

"I know the sort of thing," I said. "_'A good story is at present going the round of the clubs, concerning----'_"

"Not 'concerning'--'anent'!"

"I beg your pardon--'anent a certain well-known but absent-minded Peer of the Realm.'"

"That's the stuff. You have the trick of it. Then sometimes I do bits of general information--computations as to the height of a column of the picture postcards sold in London in a year, and all that. Nobody can check figures of that kind, so the work is easy--and correspondingly ill-paid!" (I cannot reproduce the number of contemptuous _r_'s that Robin threw into the adverb.)

"It's a fine useful place the Museum," he continued reflectively. "You were busy there this morning yourself. You would be collecting _data_ anent--I mean _about_--the Island of Caerulea."

I sat up in surprise at this.

"How on earth----?" I began.

"Oh, I just jal--guessed it. You being the only member of his Majesty's Government in whom I have any personal interest, I have always followed your career closely. (You gave me your card, you'll mind.) Well, I saw you were having trouble with yon havering body Wuddiford--I once reported at one of his meetings: he's just a sweetie-wife in _pince-nez_--and when I saw you busy with an atlas and gazetteer I said to myself:--'He'll be getting up a few salient facts about the place, in order to appease the honourable member's insatiable thirst for knowledge--Toots, there I go again! Man, the journalese fairly soaks into the system. I doubt now if I could write out twenty lines of 'Paradise Lost' without cross-heading them!"

We finished our cigar over talk like this, and finally rose to go. Robin lingered upon the steps of the restaurant. I realised that he, being a Scotsman, was endeavouring to pump up the emotional gratitude which he felt sure that I, as an Englishman, would expect from a starving pauper who had lunched at my expense.

"I must thank you," he said at last, rather awkwardly, "for a most pleasant luncheon. And I should like fine," he added suddenly and impetuously, "to make out a _precis_ for you on the subject of Caerulea.

Never heed it yourself! Away home, and I'll send it to you to-morrow!"

An idea which had been maturing in my slow-moving brain for some time suddenly took a definite shape.

"It is extremely kind of you," I said. "I shall be delighted to leave the matter in your hands. But when you have made the _precis_, I wonder if you would be so good as to bring it to my house instead of sending it?"

I gave him my address, and we parted.

Robert Chalmers Fordyce arrived at my house next morning. He brought with him a budget of condensed but exhaustive information on the subject of Caerulea, the assimilation and ultimate discharge of which enabled me to score a signal victory over Mr Wuddiford of Upper Gumbtree, relegating that champion exploiter of mare's nests to a sphere of comparative inoffensiveness for quite a considerable time.

After reading the _precis_, I offered Robin the position of my Private Secretary, which he accepted politely but without servility or effusiveness. I handed him a quarter's salary in advance, gave him two days' holiday wherein to "make his arrangements"--_Anglice_, to replenish his wardrobe--and we sealed the bargain with a glass of sherry and a biscuit apiece.

As he rose to go, Robin took from his pocket a folded manuscript.

"I see you have a good fire there," he said.

He stepped across to the hearth-rug and pitched the document into the heart of the flames, which began to lick it caressingly.

Presently the heat caused the crackling paper to unfold itself, and some of the writing became visible. Robert pointed, and I read--

_"Pars about Personalities. A capital story is at present going the round of the clubs, anent----"_

Here the flimsy manuscript burst into flame, and shot with a roar up the chimney.

I looked at Robert Chalmers Fordyce, and his face was the face of a man who has gone through deep waters, but feels the good solid rock beneath his feet at last.

He turned dumbly to me, and held out his hand.

The worst of these inarticulate and undemonstrative people is that they hurt you so.

CHAPTER FOUR.

A TRIAL TRIP.

Three days later I introduced Robert Chalmers Fordyce into the bosom of my family. I had declined to give them any previous information about him, beyond a brief warning that they would find him "rather Scotch."

I have always found it utterly impossible to foretell from a man's behaviour towards his own sex how he will comport himself in the presence of females. I have known a raw youth, hitherto regarded as the hobbledehoy of the shooting-party and the pariah of the smoking-room, lord it among the ladies like a very lion; and I have seen the hero of a hundred fights, the master of men, the essence of intrepid resolution, stand quaking outside a drawing-room door. The _debut_ of Robin, then, I awaited with considerable interest. I expected on the whole to see him tongue-tied, especially before Dolly and Dilly. On the other hand he might be aggressively assertive.

He was neither. He proved to be that rarest of types--the man who has no fear of his fellow-creatures, male or female, singly or in battalions.

Our sex is so accustomed to squaring its shoulders, pulling down its waistcoat, and assuming an engaging expression as a preliminary to an encounter with the fair, that the spectacle of a man who enters a strange drawing-room and shakes hands quietly and naturally all round, without twisting his features into an agreeable smile and mumbling entirely inarticulate words of rapture, always arouses in me feelings of envy and respect.

We found Kitty and the Twins picturesquely grouped upon the drawing-room hearth-rug, waiting for the luncheon gong.

I introduced Robin to my wife, in the indistinct and throaty tones which always obtrude themselves into an Englishman's utterance when he is called upon to say something formal but graceful. Kitty greeted the guest with a smile with which I am well acquainted (and which I can guarantee from personal experience to be absolutely irresistible on one's first experience of it), and welcomed him to the house very prettily.

"You are very kind, Mrs Inglethwaite," said Robin, shaking hands. "But I am not quite a stranger to you. Do you mind my face?"

Kitty turned scarlet.

"Mind your----? Not in the--I mean--I am sure we are de----" She floundered hopelessly.

Robin laughed pleasantly.

"There is my Scots tongue running away with me already," he said. "I should have asked rather if you _remembered_ my face."

This time Kitty ceased to look confused, but still retained a puzzled frown.

"No," she said slowly; "I don't _think_----"

"No wonder!" said Robin. "We met once, in a railway carriage, six years ago. Between Edinburgh and Perth--on a Saturday afternoon," he added expressively.

Light broke in upon Kitty. "Of course!" she said. "Now I remember. That dreadful journey! You were the gentleman who was so kind and helpful.

How nice and romantic meeting again! Adrian, you silly old creature, why didn't you tell me? Now, Mr Fordyce, let me introduce you to my sisters."

She wheeled him round and presented him to the Twins.