Fiction > Book editions > London, 1893 - Catriona

18 CATRIONA.
I saw I had got to tlie wrong side of the man.
" There's a braw day coming for him, then," said I,
*'for he'll have to learn of it on the deaf side of his head
no later than to-morrow, when I call on him."
" When ye call on him ! " repeated Mr. Stewart.
" Am I daft, or are you ? What takes ye near the
Advocate ? "
" 0, just to give myself up," said I.
" Mr. Balfour," he cried, " are ye making a mock
of me ? "
" No, sir," said I, " though I think you have
allowed yourself some such freedom with myself.
But I give you to understand once and for all that I
am in no jesting spirit."
" Nor yet me," says Stewart. " And I give you to
understand (if that's to be the word) that I like the
looks of your behaviour less and less. You come
here to me with all sorts of propositions, which will
put me in a train of very doubtful acts and bring me
among very undesirable persons this many a day to
come. And then you tell me you're going straight
out of my office to make your peace with the
Advocate ! Alan's button here or Alan's button
there, the four quarters of Alan wouldnae bribe me
further in."
" I would take it with a little more temper," said
I, "and perhaps we can avoid what you object to,
I can see no way for it but to give myself up, but
perhaps you can see another ; and if you could, I
could never deny but what I would be rather relieved.
For I think my traffic with his lordship is little
likely to agree with my health. There's just the one