g's rankled in his mind.

"I saw Hepburn in the street to-day," said Gillespie, by way of a
diversion.

"Who's Hepburn?" snapped Gourlay.

"Oh, don't you remember? He's the big Border chap who got into a row
with auld Tam on the day you won your prize essay." (That should surely
appease the fool, thought Gillespie.) "It was only for the fun of the
thing Hepburn was at College, for he has lots of money; and, here, he
never apologized to Tam! He said he would go down first."

"He was damned right," spluttered Gourlay. "Some of these profs. think
too much of themselves. They wouldn't bully _me_! There's good stuff in
the Gourlays," he went on with a meaning look at Armstrong; "they're not
to be scoffed at. I would stand insolence from no man."

"Ay, man," said Armstrong, "would you face up to a professor?"

"Wouldn't I?" said the tipsy youth; "and to you, too, if you went too
far."

He became so quarrelsome as the night went on that his comrades filled
him up with drink, in the hope of deadening his ruffled sensibilities.
It was, "Yes, yes, Jack; but never mind about that! Have another drink,
just to show there's no ill-feeling among friends."

When they left the Howff they went to Gillespie's and drank more, and
after that they roamed about the town. At two in the morning the other
two brought Gourlay to his door. He was assuring Armstrong he was not a
gentleman.

When he went to bed the fancied insult he had suffered swelled to
monstrous proportions in his fevered brain. Did Armstrong despise him?
The thought was poison! He lay in brooding anger, and his mind was
fluent in wrathful harangues in some imaginary encounter of the future,
in which he was a glorious victor. He flowed in eloquent scorn of
Armstrong and his ways. If I could talk like this always, he thought,
what a fellow I would be! He seemed gifted with uncanny insight into
Armstrong's character. He noted every weakness in the rushing whirl of
his thoughts, set them in order one by one, saw himself laying bare the
man with savage glee when next they should encounter. He would whiten
the big brute's face by showing he had probed him to the quick. Just let
him laugh at me again, thought Gourlay, and I'll analyze each mean quirk
of his dirty soul to him!

The drink was dying in him now, for the trio had walked for more than an
hour through the open air when they left Gillespie's rooms. The
stupefaction of alcohol was gone, leaving his brain morbidly a