'You are very kind, Mr. Moncrieff.'
'I'm a man of the worrrld, though I wasn't aye a man of the worrrld. I had to pay deep and dear for my experience, Miss M'Crimman.'
'I can easily believe that; but you have benefited by it.'
'Doubtless, doubtless; only it was concerning yourselves I was about to make an observation or two.'
'Oh, thanks, do. You are so kind.'
'Never a bit. This is a weary worrrld at best. Where would any of us land if the one didn't help the other? Well then, there you sit, and woman of the worrrld though you be, you're in a strange corner of it. You're in 90 a foreign land now if ever you were. You have few friends. Bah! what are all your letters of introduction worth? What do they bring you in? A few invitations to dinner, or to spend a week up country by a wealthy estanciero, advice from this friend and the next friend, and from a dozen friends maybe, but all different. You are already getting puzzled. You don't know what to do for the best. You're stopping here to look about you, as the saying is. You might well ask me what right have I to advise you. The right of brotherhood, I may answer. By birth and station you may be far above me, but—you are friends—you are from dear auld Scotland. Boys, you are my brothers!'
'And I your sister!' Aunt extended her hand as she spoke, and the worthy fellow 'coralled' it, so to speak, in his big brown fist, and tears sprang to his eyes.
He pulled himself up sharp, however, and surrounded himself with smoke, as the cuttle-fish does with black water, and probably for the same reason—to escape observation.
'Now,' he said, 'this is no time for sentiment; it is no land for sentiment, but for hard work. Well, what are you going to do? Simply to say you're going to make your fortune is all fiddlesticks and folly. How are you going to begin?'
'We were thinking—' I began, but paused.