rum them at the
stair-head till a response comes from below that the nice broth is at
hand. I boast of my engineering, and Bough compares me to the Abbot of
Arbroath who originated the Inchcape Bell. At last, in comes the tureen
and the hand-maid lifts the cover. "Rice soup!" I yell; "O no! none o'
that for me!"--"Yes," says Bough savagely; "but Miss Amy didn't take
_me_ downstairs to eat salmon." Accordingly he is helped. How his face
fell. "I imagine myself in the accident ward of the Infirmary," quoth
he. It was, purely and simply, rice and water. After this, we have
another weary pause, and then herrings in a state of mash and potatoes
like iron. "Send the potatoes out to Prussia for grape-shot," was the
suggestion. I dined off broken herrings and dry bread. At last "the
supreme moment comes," and the fowl in a lordly dish is carried in. On
the cover being raised, there is something so forlorn and miserable
about the aspect of the animal that we both roar with laughter. Then
Bough, taking up knife and fork, turns the "swarry" over and over,
shaking doubtfully his head. "There's an aspect of quiet resistance
about the beggar," says he, "that looks bad." However, to work he falls
until the sweat stands on his brow and a dismembered leg falls, dull and
leaden-like, on to my dish. To eat it was simply impossible. I did not
know before that flesh could be so tough. "The strongest jaws in
England," says Bough piteously, harpooning his dry morsel, "couldn't eat
this leg in less than twelve hours." Nothing for it now, but to order
boat and bill. "That fowl," says Bough to the landlady, "is of a breed I
know. I knew the cut of its jib whenever it was put down. That was the
grandmother of the cock that frightened Peter."--"I thought it was a
historical animal," says I. "What a shame to kill it. It's as bad as
eating Whittington's cat or the Dog of Montargis."--"Na--na, it's no so
old," says the landlady, "but it eats hard."--"Eats!" I cry, "where do
you find that? Very little of that verb with us." So with more raillery,
we pay six shillings for our festival and run over to Earraid, shaking
the dust of the Argyll Hotel from off our feet.

I can write no more just now, and I hope you will be able to decipher
so much; for it contains matter. Really, the whole of yesterday's work
would do in a novel without one little bit of embellishment; and,
indeed, few novels are so amusing. Bough, Miss Amy, Mrs. Ross, Blackie,
M---- the par