“It is like enough,” said I, with a bow and looking at his tartan. “I am from Scotland myself.”
He smiled at that with a look of some relief and took a vacant chair on the other side of my small table.
“I have come better speed with my impudence,” said he in the Hielan' accent, “than I expected or deserved. My name's Kilbride—MacKellar of Kilbride—and I am here with another Highland gentleman of the name of Grant and two or three French friends we picked up at the door of the play-house. Are you come off the Highlands, if I make take the liberty?”
“My name is lowland,” said I, “and I hail from the shire of Renfrew.”
“Ah,” said he, with a vanity that was laughable. “What a pity! I wish you had been Gaelic, but of course you cannot help it being otherwise, and indeed there are many estimable persons in the lowlands.”
“And a great wheen of Highland gentlemen very glad to join them there too,” said I, resenting the implication.
“Of course, of course,” said he heartily. “There is no occasion for offence.”
“Confound the offence, Mr. MacKellar!” said I. “Do you not think I am just too glad at this minute to hear a Scottish tongue and see a tartan waistcoat? Heilan' or Lowlan', we are all the same” when our feet are off the heather.
“Not exactly,” he corrected, “but still and on we understand each other. You must be thinking it gey droll, sir, that a band of strangers in a common tavern would have the boldness to stare at you like my friends there, and toss a dice about you in front of your face, but that is the difference between us. If I had been in your place I would have thrown the jug across at them, but here I am not better nor the rest, because the dice fell to me, and I was one that must decide the wadger.”
“Oh, and was I the object of a wadger?” said I, wondering what we were coming to.