*

There was a stranger in Dauvit's shop when I entered to-day, a
seedy-looking whiskered man with a threadbare coat and extremely dirty
linen. Shabby genteel would be the Scots description of him.

Dauvit asked me a casual question about London, and the stranger became
interested at once.

"Ah," he said, "you're from London, are ye? Man, yon's a great place,
a wonderful place!"

I nodded assent.

"Man," he continued, "yon's the place for sichts! Could anything beat
the procession at the Lord Mayor's show, eh?"

I meekly admitted that I had never seen the Lord Mayor's show, and he
raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"But I'll tell ye what's just as good, mister, and that's the King and
Queen opening Parliament. Man, yon's a sicht, isn't it?"

"I--er--I haven't had the opportunity of seeing it," I said.

He looked more surprised than ever.

"But, man, I'll tell ye what's just as good, and that's a big London
fire. Man, to see the way the firemen go up the ladders like monkeys.
Yon's a sicht for sair een!"

"I never had the luck to see a fire in London," I said hesitatingly.
"When were you last in town?"

He did not seem to hear my question; he was evidently thinking of other
London thrills.

"Man," he said ruminatingly, "often while I sit in the Tarbonny Kirk I
just sit and think aboot Westminster Abbey. Man, yon's a kirk! I
suppose you'll be there ilka Sunday?"

I found it difficult to tell him that I had never been in the Abbey,
but I managed to get the words out, and then I avoided his reproachful
eye. He knocked out his pipe, and I took the action to be a symbolic
one meaning: You are an empty sort of person. He studied me critically
for a time, then he brightened.

"Aye," he said cheerfully, "London's a graund place, but, for sichts
give me New York."

I felt more humble than ever, for I had never travelled. He seemed to
guess that by the look of me, for he never asked my opinion of New York.

"Man," he said warmly, "yon's a place! Yon skyscrapers! Phew!" and he
whistled his wonder and admiration. "And the streets! Man, ye canna
walk on the sidewalk at the busy times. A wonderfu' place, New York,
but, as for me, give me the West, California and Frisco."

"You have travelled much, sir," I said reverently. The "sir" seemed to
come naturally; my inferiority complex was touched on the raw.

Again he ignored me.

"To see yon cowboys! Man, yon's what I call riding! And the Indian