Duncan came over to-night. I decided to let him do most of the talking, and he did it well. He has been doing a lot of Regional Geography, and I learned much from his conversation. As the evening wore on he became very affable, and he treated me with the greatest kindness. When Mac was seeing him out Duncan remarked to him: "That chap Neill isn't such a bad fellow after all." Now that I have shown Duncan that I am his inferior in Geography he will listen to me with less irritation.
After supper I went over to see Dauvit. His shop was crowded.
Conversation was going slowly, and Dauvit seemed to welcome my entrance.
"Man, Dominie," he said, "I am very glad to see ye, cos the smith here has been tellin' his usual lees aboot the ten pund troot that he nearly landed in the Kernet."
"I doot ye dreamt it, smith," said the foreman from Hillend. "I ken for mysell that the biggest troot I ever catched were in my dreams."
"Dreams is just a curran blethers," said the smith in scorn.
Dauvit looked at him thoughtfully.
"That's a very ignorant remark, smith," he said gravely. "There's naebody kens what a dream is. Some o' thae spiritualist lads say that when ye are asleep yer spirit goes to the next plane, and that maks yer dreams."
The smith laughed loudly.
"Oh, Dauvit! Why, man, I dreamed last nicht that I was sittin' we a great muckle pint o' beer in my hand. Do ye mean to tell me that there is beer in heaven?"
There was a laugh at Dauvit's expense, but the laugh turned against the smith when Dauvit remarked dryly: "I didna mention heaven; I said the next plane, and onybody that kens you, smith, kens that the plane you're gaein' to is the doon plane."