The Right Stuff | Page 4

poser. Which
would be the ribbon door? Supposing he entered the wrong one and
found himself compelled to purchase a roll of muslin or a
wash-hand-stand? With natural acumen he finally selected a door
flanked by windows containing lace and ribbon; and waiting for a
moment when the surging crowd was thickest, attempted to slip in with
them. He got safely past a hero in a medal-sown uniform, but
immediately after this encountered an imposing gentleman in a
frock-coat, who asked his pleasure. Robert inquired respectfully if the
gentleman kept ribbon. The gentleman said "Surely, surely!" and
Robert's modest requirements were thereupon sent ringing from a
throat of brass into the uttermost recesses of the establishment, and he
himself was passed, hot-faced, along the fairway until he reached the
right department. Here his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and
the siren behind the counter, with difficulty stifling her amusement,

was reduced to discovering his needs by a process of elimination.
"What will I show you?"
No answer.
"Ladies' gloves?"
A shake of the head.
"Handkerchiefs?"
Another shake.
"Stockings?"
Another shake, accompanied by a deepening of complexion.
"Well--ribbon?"
"Aye, that's it," replied Robert, suddenly finding his voice (which, by
the way, rather resembled the Last Trump). "Hauf a yaird--one inch
wide--satin--cream!" he roared mechanically.
He received the small parcel, and furtively fingering the money in his
pocket, asked the price.
"Two-three, please," replied the damsel briskly.
How Robert thanked his stars that he had some cash in hand! But what
a price! All that for a scrap of ribbon! It seemed sinful; but he laid two
shillings and threepence on the counter. Greatly to his alarm, the young
woman behind it, who up to this point had kept her feelings under
commendable control, suddenly collapsed like a punctured balloon on
to the shoulder of her nearest neighbour--there being no shop-walkers
about--and expressed a wish that she might be taken home and buried.
Finally she recovered sufficiently to push Robert's two shillings back
across the counter and to place his threepence in a mysterious
receptacle which she thrust into a hole in the wall, from which it was

ejected with much clatter a minute later; and on being opened proved to
contain what the dazed Robert at first took for a half-sovereign, but
which he ultimately discovered, when he had abandoned the still
giggling maiden and groped his way out into the street, to be a bright
new farthing.
The same day he returned to his home; but he did not reach it without
one more adventure, a slight one, it is true, but not without its effect
upon his future.
The train was over-full, and Robert ultimately found himself travelling
in company with nine other passengers, seven of whom were suffering
from that infirmity once poetically described by an expert in such
diagnoses as "a wee bit drappie in their een." The exception was a
gentleman in the far corner, accompanied by a most lovely young lady,
upon whom Robert gazed continuously with an admiration so
absorbing and profound that it took him some little time to realise,
shortly after the commencement of the journey, that the rest of the
company were indulging in a free fight all over the compartment, and
that the lady was clinging in terror to her escort. Robert was of
considerable service in restoring order, and found his reward in the
eyes of the lady, who thanked him very prettily. Her husband had the
sense not to offer Robert money, but gave him his card, and said in a
curious, stiff, English way that he hoped he might be of service to him
some day. They got out at Perth, and Robert travelled on alone.
Hours later he was met by his brother David at a little wayside station,
and driven over fifteen miles of hilly road to the farm where he had
been born and brought up.
Next morning he was up at daybreak, and set to work at his usual tasks
about the yard, well knowing that such would be his lot to the end of
his life if the examination list did not show his name at the top.
* * * * *
Some days had to elapse before the result could be known; but Robert
Chalmers Fordyce--by the way, I think we know him well enough now

to call him Robin, which was the name his mother had given him on his
third birthday--and his household, being Scottish and undemonstrative,
made little or no reference to the subject.
Robin was the scholar of his family. He was the second son, David
being four years older. But in accordance with that simple, grand, and
patriarchal law of Scottish peasant life, which decrees that every lad of
parts shall be given his chance