Society in Aberdeen is of the choicest. Its aristocracy is an aristocracy of talent. In Aberdeen, as in Edinburgh, the local lions are the professors of the university, literary people, doctors, barristers, and artists. To cut a figure there, you need not jingle your guineas, but only show your brains and good manners. In Glasgow, show your savoir-faire; but, in Edinburgh and Aberdeen, your savoir-vivre.
I cannot quit the subject of Aberdeen without relating a little incident which exceedingly diverted me.
A few hours before delivering a lecture at the Albert Hall, I paid a visit to the place to see if my reading-desk had been properly arranged. Great was my surprise, on entering the hall, to see near the platform an elegant improvised green-room, curtained off. I asked the caretaker if there was not a retiring-room, in which I could await the moment for beginning my lecture, to which he replied:
"Yes, sir; we have an anteroom over there, but I have set apart this little green-room, because I thought it would be more comfortable for you to go and change your dresses in during the performance."
The worthy fellow evidently imagined that I was going to appear in tights before the lairds of Aberdeen.
The learned professor, who had kindly come to introduce me to my audience, laughed heartily with me over the joke.
CHAPTER XXX.
The Thistle.—"Nemo me impune lacessit."—"Honi soit qui Mollet pince."—Political Aspirations of the Scotch.—Signification of Liberalism in Scotland.—Self-Government in the near Future.—Coercive Pills.—The Disunited Kingdom.—The United Empire.