Penny Plain | Page 5

a grubby little boy and a fox-terrier, and he said, 'Come out, Mhor and Peter.' And suppose they went with him all the way to Oxford, and when they got to the college they crept upstairs without being seen and the scout was a kind scout and liked dogs and naughty boys and he gave them a splendid supper----"
"What did he give them?" Mhor asked.
"Chicken and boiled ham and meringues and sugar biscuits and lemonade" (mentioning a few of Mhor's favourite articles of food), "and he tucked them up on the sofa and they slept till morning, and got into the train and came home, and that's all."
"Me next," said Mhor. "Suppose they didn't come home again. Suppose they started from Oxford and went all round the world. And I met a magician--in India that was--and he gave me an elephant with a gold howdah on its back, and I wasn't frightened for it--such a meek, gentle, dirty animal--and Peter and me sat on it and it pulled off cocoanuts with its trunk and handed them back to us, and we lived there always, and I had a Newfoundland pup and Peter had a golden crown because he was king of all the dogs, and I never went to bed and nobody ever washed my ears and we made toffee every day, every single day...." His voice trailed away into silence as he contemplated this blissful vision, and Jock, wooed from his Greek verbs by the interest of the game, burst in with his unmanageable voice:
"Suppose a Russian man-of-war came up Tweed and started shelling Priorsford, and the parish church was hit and the steeple fell into Thomson's shop and scattered the haddocks and kippers and things all over the street, and----"
"Did you pick them up, Jock?" squealed Mhor, who regarded Jock as the greatest living humorist, and now at the thought of the scattered kippers wallowed on the floor with laughter.
Jock continued: "And another shell blew the turrety thing off The Towers and blew Mrs. Duff-Whalley right over the West Law and landed her in Caddon Burn----"
"Hurray!" yelled Mhor.
Jock was preparing for a further flight of fancy, when Mrs. M'Cosh, having finished washing the dishes, came in to say that Thomson had never sent the sausages for Mr. David's breakfast, and she could not see him depart for England unfortified by sausages and poached eggs.
"I'll just slip down and get them," she announced, being by no means averse to a stroll along the lighted Highgate. It was certainly neither Argyle Street nor the Paisley Road, but it bore a far-off resemblance to those gay places, and for that Mrs. M'Cosh was thankful. There was a cinema, too, and that was a touch of home. Talking over Priorsford with Glasgow friends she would say, "It's no' juist whit I wud ca' the deid country--no juist paraffin-ile and glaury roads, ye ken. We hev gas an' plain-stanes an' a pictur hoose."
When Mrs. M'Cosh left the room Jock returned to his books, and the Mhor, his imagination fermenting with the thought of bombs on Priorsford, retired to the window-seat to think out further damage.
* * * * *
Some hours later, when Jock and Mhor were fast asleep and David, his packing finished, was preparing to go to bed, Jean slipped into the room.
She stood looking at the open trunk on the floor, at the shelves from which the books had been taken, at the empty boot cupboard.
Two large tears rolled over her face, but she managed to say quite gaily, "December will soon be here."
"In no time at all," said David.
Jean was carrying a little book, which she now laid on the dressing-table, and, giving it a push in her brother's direction, "It's a Daily Light," she explained.
David did not offer to look at the gift, which was the traditional Jardine gift to travellers, a custom descending from Great-aunt Alison. He stood a bit away and said, "All right."
And Jean understood, and said nothing of what was in her heart.

CHAPTER II
"They have their exits and their entrances." As You Like It.
The ten o'clock express from Euston to Scotland was tearing along on its daily journey. It was that barren hour in the afternoon when luncheon is over and forgotten, and tea is yet far distant, and most of the passengers were either asleep or listlessly trying to read light literature.
Alone in a first-class carriage sat Bella Bathgate's lodger--Miss Pamela Reston. A dressing-bag and a fur-coat and a pile of books and magazines lay on the opposite seat, and the lodger sat writing busily. An envelope lay beside her addressed to
THE LORD BIDBOROUGH, c/o KING, KING, & Co., BOMBAY.
The letter ran:
"DEAR BIDDY,--We have always agreed, you and I (forgive the abruptness of this beginning), that we would each live our own life. Your