ble?"

"He tried him out in half a dozen positions, in every one of which he
proved a dead failure. The last was in Mr. Rae's office, a lawyer, you
know, Writer, to use your lucid and luminous speech. That experiment
proved the climax." At the memory of that experience Martin laughed loud
and long. "It was funny! Mr. Rae, the cool, dignified, methodical, exact
man of the law, struggling to lick into shape this haughty Highland
chieftain, who in his heart scorned the whole silly business. The
result, the complete disorganisation of Mr. Rae's business, and
total demoralisation of Mr. Rae's office staff, who one and all swore
allegiance to the young chief. Finally, when Mr. Rae had reached the
depths of desperation, Cameron graciously deigned to inform his boss
that he found the office and its claims quite insupportable."

"Oh, it must have been funny. What happened?"

"What happened? You bet old Rae fell on his neck with tears of joy, and
sent him off with a handsome honorarium, as your gentle speech has it.
That was a fortnight ago. Then Dunn, in despair, took Cameron off to his
native haunts, and there he is to this day. By the same token, this is
the very afternoon that Dunn returns. Let us go to meet him with cornets
and cymbals! The unexpected pleasure of your return made me quite
forget. But won't he revel in you, old boy!"

"I don't know about that," said Linklater gloomily. "I've a kind of
feeling that I've dropped out of this combination."

"What?" Then Martin fell upon him.

But if Martin's attempts to relieve his friend of melancholy forebodings
were not wholly successful, Dunn's shout of joy and his double-handed
shake as he grappled Linklater to him, drove from that young man's heart
the last lingering shade of doubt as to his standing with his friends.

On his way home Dunn dropped into Martin's diggings for a "crack," and
for an hour the three friends reviewed the summer's happenings, each
finding in the experience of the others as keen a joy as in his own.

Linklater's holiday had been the most fruitful in exciting incident.
For two months he and his crew had dodged about among quaint Norwegian
harbours and in and out of fjords of wonderful beauty. Storms they
had weathered and calms they had endured; lazy days they had spent,
swimming, fishing, loafing; and wild days in fighting gales and
high-running seas that threatened to bury them and their crew beneath
their white-topped mountainous peaks.