"Oh, I'm all right, Deacon," said Gourlay with a silly laugh. "Have a wet?" The whisky had begun to warm him.
"A wha-at?" said the Deacon, blinking in a puzzled fashion with his bleary old eyes.
"A dram—a drink—a drop o' the Auld Kirk," said Gourlay, with a stertorous laugh down through his nostrils.
"Hi! hi!" laughed the Deacon in his best falsetto. "Ith that what ye call it up in Embro? A wet, ay! Ah, well, maybe I will take a little drope, theeing you're tho ready wi' your offer."
They drank together.
"Aggie, fill me a mutchkin when you're at it," said Gourlay to the pretty barmaid with the curly hair. He had spent many an hour with her last summer in the bar. The four big whiskies he had swallowed in the last half-hour were singing in him now, and he blinked at her drunkenly.
There was a scarlet ribbon on her dark curls, coquettish, vivid, and Gourlay stared at it dreamily, partly in a drunken daze, and partly because a striking colour always brought a musing and self-forgetting look within his eyes. All his life he used to stare at things dreamily, and come to himself with a start when spoken to. He forgot himself now.
"Aggie," he said, and put his hand out to hers clumsily where it rested on the counter—"Aggie, that ribbon's infernal bonny on your dark hair!"
She tossed her head, and perked away from him on her little high heels. Him, indeed!—the drunkard! She wanted none of his compliments!
There were half a dozen in the place by this time, and they all stared with greedy eyes. "That's young Gourlay—him that was expelled," was heard, the last an emphatic whisper, with round eyes of awe at the offence that must have merited such punishment. "Expelled, mind ye!"—with a round shake of the head. "Watch Allardyce. We'll see fun."