"But I dare say ye micht see Maister Donald," said the watchman, relenting. He remembered that he had no daughters that could be ready for a few years yet; and besides, Cleg was a good friend of his. "But what ken ye aboot lassies? My sang, but ye are early begun, my lad. Ye'll rue it some day."
Cleg smiled, but disdained an answer. He was not argie-bargiein' at present, as he would have said. He was waiting to get a job for Vara Kavannah. In another minute he found himself in the presence of Mr. Donald Iverach, junior partner in the firm of Iverach & Company, whose position in the paper trade and special eminence in the production of the higher grades of foreign correspondence were acknowledged even by rivals—as the senior partner wrote when he was preparing the advertisement for the firm's yearly almanack.
Mr. Donald Iverach was not in the best of humours. He had hoped to be playing "pocket-handkerchief tennis," of which he had grown inordinately fond, upon the lawn of Aurelia Villa. But it so happened that he had been required to supply his father upon the morrow with important data concerning the half-yearly balance. For this reason he had to remain in the dreary office in the South Back. This jumped ill with the desires of the junior partner, who was at present so very junior a partner that his share of the profits was only a full and undivided fiftieth—"amply sufficient, however," as his father said many times over, "and much more than ever I had at your age, with a wife and family to keep."
"I wish I had!" said the reckless Donald, when he had heard this for the twentieth time, not knowing what he said.
"Donald, you are a young fool!" said his father. Which, of course, materially helped things.
Now the temper of Mr. Donald Iverach was specially tried on this occasion, for he had good reason to believe that a picturesque cousin of Cecilia's from London, who had been invalided home from some ridiculous little war or other, was playing pocket-handkerchief tennis at Aurelia Villa that evening in place of himself.
So his greeting to Cleg was curt indeed, as he looked up with his pen in his fingers from the last estimate of "goods returned damaged"—an item which always specially annoyed his father.
"What do you want, boy?" he said, with a glance at the tattered trousers with one "gallus" showing across the blue shirt, which represented Cleg's entire summer wear.
"Hae ye ony licht job ye could gie a clever and wullin' lassie the morn?" said Cleg, who knew that the way to get a thing is to ask for it.
"What lassie?" said the junior partner indifferently.