"No!" growled Alister, as from a pent volcano.
"You will break my ears, Alister!" cried the mother, unable to keep from laughing at the wrath in which he went straining through the room.
"Think of it," insisted Ian: "a man like could not think otherwise without a revolution of his whole being to which the change of the leopard's spots would be nothing.—What you meant, after all, was not cordiality; it was only generosity; to which his response, his countercheck friendly, was an order for ten pounds!—All is right between you!"
"Now, really, Ian, you must not go on teasing your elder brother so!" said the mother.
Alister laughed, and ceased fuming. "But I must answer the brute!" he said. "What am I to say to him?"
"That you are much obliged," replied Ian, "and will have the cheque framed and hung in the hall."
"Come, come! no more of that!"
"Well, then, let me answer the letter."
"That is just what I wanted!"
Ian sat down at his mother's table, and this is what he wrote.