to "_Tu ne cede
malis_," and smiled blandly, as he always did when it was brought to his
recollection that he had won more than soldiers' battles when the odds
against him were three to one.

"I was just telling Mr. Spencer that Waterloo looks like being the last
of the battles, General, and that one bit of Brooks' map here is just
as well known to some of us as the paths and woods and waters of Glen
Shira."

"I'm not very well acquaint with Glen Shira myself," was all the General
said, looking at the map for a moment with eyes that plainly had no
interest in the thing before them, and then he turned to a nudge of the
Paymaster's arm.

Turner smiled again knowingly to Mr. Spencer. "I put my brogues in it
that time," said he in a discreet tone. "I forgot that the old gentleman
and his brothers were far better acquaint with Glen Shira in my wife's
maiden days than I was myself. But that's an old story, Mr. Spencer,
that you are too recent an incomer to know the shades and meanings of."

"I daresay, sir, I daresay," said Mr. Spencer gravely. "You are a most
interesting and sensitive people, and I find myself often making the
most unhappy blunders."

"Interesting is not the word, I think, Mr. Spencer," said General Turner
coldly; "we refuse to be interesting to any simple Sassenach." Then he
saw the confusion in the innkeeper's face and laughed. "Upon my word,"
he said, "here I'm as touchy as a bard upon a mere phrase. This is very
good drink, Mr. Spencer; your purveyance, I suppose?"

"I had the privilege, sir," said the innkeeper. "Captain Campbell gave
the order----"

"Captain Campbell!" said the General, putting down his glass and
drinking no more. "I was not aware that he was at the costs of this
dregy. Still, no matter, you'll find the Campbells a good family to have
dealings with of any commercial kind, pernick-etty and proud a bit, like
all the rest of us, with their bark worse than their bite."

"I find them quite the gentlemen," said the innkeeper.

Turner laughed again.

"Man!" said he, "take care you do not put your compliment just exactly
that way to them; you might as well tell Dr. Colin he was a surprisingly
good Christian."

Old Brooks, out of sheer custom, sat on the high stool at his desk and
hummed his declensions to himself, or the sing-song _Arma virumque cano_
that was almost all his Latin pupils remembered of his classics when
they had left school. The noise of the assembly a little dist