ugh
Pitcairn. But while there could be no doubt of the affection each had
for me, there could be equally no doubt of the dislike they bore each
other, this feeling having grown from the first day they met in the
hockey grounds of the High School, where almost at sight of each other
they fell to fighting, until finally pulled apart by some of the older
lads.

"In this connection," said I, getting back at him a bit, for his
jeering at my plans, "what do you think of Hugh Pitcairn?"

"In this connection," he returned dryly, "I do not think of Hugh
Pitcairn at all."

"It's strange," I went on, in the same remote tone, as though it were a
subject mentioned for the first time, "that ye should dislike him so."

"It can not match the strangeness of any one's enduring his society,"
he replied with heat.

"Well, well," said I, putting Pitcairn out of the talk. "What do you
say to Geordie MacAllister?"

"The very man," he cried, writing the name in the book.

"And Graham Annesley," I went on.

"Good again."

"And Donald McDonald."

"He won't do at all!" Sandy broke out in a determined way. "He's gone
the way of all trouble, which is the way of women. He's crazed about
the Lady Mary Llewellyn and we'll have no one along who is sighing for
a woman, be she his own or another man's wife. That's what I like in
you, Jock Stair," he said, gazing at me with approval. "Ye've your
faults----"

"No?" I said, with pretended amazement.

"Ye'd gamble on the flight of angels----"

"Ye're speaking of some one else, maybe," I suggested.

"And ye drink more than ye should,--but you're my own man where the
women are concerned; for never since I knew ye,--and that's ever since
ye were born,--have I seen ye look with wanting at maid, wife, or
widow, and ye're wise in that," he added in a tone whose bitterness
came from the unhappiness of his own wedded life.

To put the talk into a brighter channel, I hastened to suggest a fourth
and fifth companion for the cruise, upon which we fell to passing
judgment on the companionable men of our acquaintance, weighing their
congeniality to us and to each other until one o'clock was past before
we set about the business of delivering our invitations.

Offering to accompany Sandy on these errands, I thought I heard a
groan, and on leaving the dining-room I made sure of another, and on
the instant knew that they came from Huey MacGrath.

This expedition falling so quickly on the heels of his