A Practical Novelist

by John Davidson

'Oh, I'm bonnie Prince Charlie too.'

'That only indicates that you are mad; and a very ordinary madness it is. I am sure there are two or three bonnie Prince Charlies in every lunatic asylum in Scotland.'

'I'm mad, an' naebody daur harm me,' growled Clacher.

'You remember Robert's escapade when he was a boy, Henry?' said
Miss Jane.

'To which do you refer? There were so many,' said Lee.

'Oh, not so very many,' said Miss Jane. 'I mean the Inverkip Glen affair.'

'I can't say I do remember it.'

'Oh, you must. You weren't here at the time; but you knew all about it.'

Lee sat up, and swiftly changed his look of anxiety into a far-reaching glance at the past.

'Ah, yes!' he said, dropping back in his chair again.