unconsciously murmured the last, changed as it was from
the preceding form, aloud. Mr Cupples looked up from Gurnall uneasily,
fidgeted in his chair, and said testily:

"A' nonsense! Moonshine and rainbows! Haud yer tongue! The last line's
a' wrang."

He then returned with a determined air to the consideration of his
_Christian Armour_, while Alec, in whom the minor tone of the poem had
greatly deepened the interest he felt in the writer, gazed at him in a
bewilderment like that one feels when his eyes refuse to take their
proper relation to the perspective before them. He could not get those
verses and Mr Cupples into harmony. Not daring to make any observation,
however, he sat with the last leaf still in his hand, and a reverential
stare upon his face, which at length produced a remarkable effect upon
the object of it. Suddenly lifting his eyes--

"What are ye glowerin' at me for?" he exclaimed, flinging his book from
him, which, missing the table, fell on the floor on the further side of
it. "I'm neither ghaist nor warlock. Damn ye! gang oot, gin ye be gaun
to stick me throu and throu wi' yer een, that gait."

"I beg your pardon, Mr Cupples. I didn't mean to be rude," said Alec
humbly.

"Weel, cut yer stick, I hae eneuch o' ye for ae nicht. I canna stan'
glowerin' een, especially i' the heids o' idiots o' innocents like
you."

I am sorry to have to record what Alec learned from the landlady
afterwards, that Mr Cupples went to bed that night, notwithstanding it
was the Sabbath, more drunk than she had ever known him. Indeed he
could not properly be said to have gone to bed at all, for he had
tumbled on the counter-pane in his clothes and clean shirt-collar;
where she had found him fast asleep the next morning, with Gurnall's
_Christian Armour_ terribly crumpled under him.

"But," said Alec, "what _is_ Mr Cupples?"

"That's a queston he cudna weel answer ye himsel'," was the reply. "He
does a heap o' things; writes for the lawyers whiles; buys and sells
queer buiks; gies lessons in Greek and Hebrew--but he disna like
that--he canna bide to be contred, and laddies is gey contresome; helps
onybody that wants help i' the way o' figures--whan their buiks gang
wrang ye ken, for figures is some ill for jummlin'. He's a kin' o'
librarian at yer ain college i' the noo, Mr Forbes. The auld man's
deid, and Mr Cupples is jist doin' the wark. They winna gie him the
place--'cause he has an ill name for drink--but they'll