ooked at the maid and his breath came quick and fast; but he
counted out the money nevertheless. Having occasion to visit the
bathroom to cool his throbbing brow, he perceived a razor on a little
shelf near the mirror there. At once he pocketed this razor and made
off, whistling _Scots Wha Hae_. He had recouped himself for the
overcharge on the cup of tea. Strange to say, every time he shaved with
the stolen razor he feared some impending calamity. He knew enough Greek
to be aware that Ajax committed suicide with the very sword that hero
got from the enemy. Whenever the student disfigured his chin and
reddened the lather with a new-made gash, he felt in his inmost soul
that a Nemesis was being wrought out. _By this simple tale, my friends,
one may see the sovereign power of conscience, which, though dormant for
a time, invariably asserts itself and flogs the culprit._"

COMPLIMENT TO PAISLEY.

The following remarks made by a speaker at one of the meetings are worth
citing: "I do not wish our Paisley friend," he said, "to go back to the
banks of the Cart under the impression that we are not a very literary
people up here in Ross-shire. On the contrary, we are clean gone on
literature. Just look at our syllabus! One night we have a discussion on
Shakespeare. Eh? What do you think of that? Shakespeare no less! Next
night we deal with _an equally great poet--Tannahill_." (No doubt the
speaker meant to compliment Paisley in thus comparing the author of
_Lear_ and _Hamlet_ with the poet-laureate of the loom.) I have heard
Milton's _Paradise Lost_ and Pollok's _Course of Time_ clashed together
in the same ludicrous way. I was dreadfully nonplussed on one occasion
by hearing a speaker strongly recommend the audience to give their days
and nights to the study of Bunyan and M'Cheyne. "Bunyan by all means,"
said I to myself, "but who is M'Cheyne that one should be mindful of him
and put him for importance alongside of the immortal tinker?"

ORATORY AT SALEN.

I shall never forget a vote of thanks proposed in my hearing by the
excellent doctor of Salen, a pleasant little place situated on a
V-shaped creek of Loch Sunart. I never expect to meet a more genial or
more humorous man than the doctor, on this side of eternity. He knows
the roads of gusty Ardnamurchan better than any other living man, and,
night and day, by sun and by moon, in weather of clear blue, and under
the eddying blinding flakes, he is ever on the move. He f