'Sit ye down, sit ye down,' their hostess said gaily. 'Here, captain, is a job for ye; here's the punch-bowl that we only have on great days, ye ken; and your brew is famous—whether wi' old Jamaica or Long John. Set to work now—here's the sugar and the lemons ready for ye—for ye maun a' drink the health o' my cousin here that's come frae Sutherland.'

'Frae Sutherland, say ye, Mistress?' the big skipper said, as he reached over for the lemons. 'Ye should ca' him your kissin frae the Hielans then. Do ye ken that story, Laidlaw? D'ye ken that yin about the Hielan kissins, Jaap? Man, that's a gude yin! have ye no heard it? Have ye no heard it, Mistress?'

'Tell us what it is first, and we'll tell you afterwards,' said she saucily.

'Weel, then,' said he—and he desisted from his preparations for the punch-making, for he was famous along the Broomielaw as a story-teller, and liked to keep up his reputation, 'it was twa young lasses, twa cousins they were, frae the west side o' Skye—and if there's ony place mair Hielan than that, it's no me that ever heard o't—and they were ta'en into service in an inn up about the Gairloch or Loch Inver, or one o' they lochs. Both o' them were good-looking lasses, mind ye; but one o' them just unusual handsome. Well, then, there happened to come to the inn an English tourist—a most respectable old gentleman he was; and it was one o' they two lasses—and no the brawest o' them either—that had to wait on him: but he was a freendly auld man; and on the mornin' o' his gaun awa he had to ring for something or other, and when she brought it to him, he said to her, jist by way o' compliment, ye ken, "You are a very good-looking girl, do you know, Flora?" And of course the lass was very well pleased; but she was a modest lassie too; and she said, "Oh no, sir; but I hef heard them say my kissin was peautiful!" "Your what?" said he. "My kissin, sir—" "Get away, you bold hussy! Off with you at once, or I'll ring for your master—you brazen baggage!"—and to this very day, they tell me, the poor lass do'esna ken what on earth it was that made the auld man into a madman; for what harm had she done in telling him that her cousin was better-looking than herself?'

This recondite joke was received with much laughter by the company; and even Ronald had to admit that the Clyde skipper's imitation of the Highland accent was very fairly well done. But joke-making is dull work with empty glasses; and so Captain M'Taggart set himself seriously to the business of brewing that bowl of punch, while Kate Menzies polished the silver ladle to an even higher extreme of brilliancy.

Now these three old cronies of the widow's had betrayed a little surprise on finding a stranger installed in their favourite howf; and perhaps they might have been inclined to resent the intrusion had not Kate Menzies very speedily intimated her views upon the subject in unmistakable language. Her 'cousin Ronald' was all her cry; it was Ronald this and Ronald that; and whatever Ronald said, that was enough, and decisive. For, of course, after a glass or so of punch, the newcomers had got to talking politics—or what they took to be politics; and Ronald, when he was invited to express his opinion, proved to be on the unpopular side; nor did he improve his position by talking with open scorn of a great public agitation then going on—indeed, he so far forgot himself as to define stump-oratory as only another form of foot-and-mouth disease. But at least he had one strenuous backer, and neither Mr. Laidlaw nor Mr. Jaap nor the big skipper was anxious to quarrel with a controversialist who had such abundant stores of hospitality at her command. Moreover, Kate Menzies was in the habit of speaking her mind; was it not better, for the sake of peace and quietness, to yield a little? This cousin of hers from the Highlands could parade some book-learning it is true; and he had plenty of cut-and-dried theories that sounded plausible enough; and his apparent knowledge of the working of American institutions was sufficiently good for an argument—so long as one could not get at the real facts; but they knew, of course, that, with time to get at these facts and to furnish forth replies to his specious reasonings, they could easily prove their own case. In the meantime they would be magnanimous. For the sake of good fellowship—and to oblige a lady—they shifted the subject.

Or rather she did.

'I suppose you'll be going to the Harmony Club to-night?' she said.

'For a while, at least,' replied the captain. 'Mr. Jaap's new song is to be sung the nicht; and we maun get him an encore for't. Not that it needs us; "Caledonia's hills and dales" will be a' ower Glasgow before a fortnight's out; and it's young Tam Dalswinton that's to sing it. Tam'll do his best, no fear.'

'It's little ye think,' observed Mrs. Menzies, with a kind of superior air, 'that there's somebody not a hundred miles frae here that can sing better than a' your members and a' your professionals put thegither. The Harmony Club! If the Harmony Club heard him, they might tak tent and learn a lesson.'