“Man! him and me lodged together in Lucky Grant's, in Crombie's Land in the High Street, for two Sessions,” said I.
“What!” said MacKellar. “And you'll be the lad that snow-balled the bylie, and your name will be Greig?”
As he said it he bent to look under the table, then drew up suddenly with a startled face and a whisper of a whistle on his lips.
“My goodness!” said he, in a cautious tone, “and that beats all. You'll be the lad that broke jyle with the priest that shot at Buhot, and there you are, you amadain, like a gull with your red brogues on you, crying 'come and catch me' in two languages. I'm telling you to keep thae feet of yours under this table till we're out of here, if it should be the morn's morning. No—that's too long, for by the morn's morning Buhot's men will be at the Hôtel Dieu, and the end of the story will be little talk and the sound of blows, as the other man said.”
Every now and then as he spoke he would look over his shoulder with a quick glance at his friends—a very anxious man, but no more anxious than Paul Greig.
“Mercy on us!” said I, “do you tell me you ken all that?”
“I ken a lot more than that,” said he, “but that's the latest of my budget, and I'm giving it to you for the sake of the shoes and my brother Alasdair, that is a writer in Edinburgh. There's not two Scotchmen drinking a bowl in Paris town this night that does not ken your description, and it's kent by them at the other table there—where better?—but because you have that coat on you that was surely made for you when you were in better health, as the other man said, and because your long trams of legs and red shoes are under the table there's none of them suspects you. And now that I'm thinking of it, I would not go near the hospital place again.”
“Oh! but the priest's there,” said I, “and it would never do for me to be leaving him there without a warning.”
“A warning!” said MacKellar with contempt. “I'm astonished to hear you, Mr. Greig. The filthy brock that he is!”
“If you're one of the Prince's party,” said I, “and it has every look of it, or, indeed, whether you are or not, I'll allow you have some cause to blame Father Hamilton, but as for me, I'm bound to him because we have been in some troubles together.”