we'd made up our mind not
to come here again after this first call. We ain't goin' to compromise
you."

"I am the best judge of that," returned the consul dryly. Then suddenly
changing his manner, he grasped Custer's hands with both his own. "Come,
Harry," he said earnestly; "I will not believe that this is not a joke,
but I beg of you to promise me one thing,--do not move a step further in
this matter without legal counsel. I will give you a letter to a legal
friend of mine--a man of affairs, a man of the world, and a Scot as
typical, perhaps, as any you have mentioned. State your LEGAL case
to him--only that; but his opinion will show you also, if I am not
mistaken, the folly of your depending upon any sectional or historical
sentiment in this matter."

Without waiting for a reply, he sat down and hastily wrote a few lines
to a friendly local magnate. When he had handed the note to Custer, the
latter looked at the address, and showed it to his young companion.

"Same name, isn't it?" he asked.

"Yes," responded Mr. McHulish.

"Do you know him?" asked the consul, evidently surprised.

"We don't, but he's a friend of one of the Eagle boys. I reckon we would
have seen him anyhow; but we'll agree with you to hold on until we do.
It's a go. Goodby, old pard! So long."

They both shook the consul's hand, and departed, leaving him staring at
the fog into which they had melted as if they were unreal shadows of the
past.

II.

The next morning the fog had given way to a palpable, horizontally
driving rain, which wet the inside as well as the outside of umbrellas,
and caused them to be presented at every conceivable angle as they
drifted past the windows of the consulate. There was a tap at the door,
and a clerk entered.

"Ye will be in to Sir James MacFen?"

The consul nodded, and added, "Show him in here."

It was the magnate to whom he had sent the note the previous day, a man
of large yet slow and cautious nature, learned and even pedantic, yet
far-sighted and practical; very human and hearty in social intercourse,
which, however, left him as it found him,--with no sentimental or
unbusiness-like entanglements. The consul had known him sensible and
sturdy at board meetings and executive councils; logical and convincing
at political gatherings; decorous and grave in the kirk; and humorous
and jovial at festivities, where perhaps later in the evening, in
company with others, hands were clasped over a libat