"How much snuff are we to say?" he asked.
"Then there's the lass Alison Hastie, in Limekilns," said I. "Her that helped Alan and me across the Forth. I was thinking if I could get her a good Sunday gown, such as she could wear with decency in her degree, it would be an ease to my conscience; for the mere truth is, we owe her our two lives."
"I am glad to see you are thrifty, Mr. Balfour," says he, making his notes.
"I would think shame to be otherwise the first day of my fortune," said I. "And now, if you will compute the outlay and your own proper charges, I would be glad to know if I could get some spending-money back. It's not that I grudge the whole of it to get Alan safe; it's not that I lack more; but having drawn so much the one day, I think it would have a very ill appearance if I was back again seeking the next. Only be sure you have enough," I added, "for I am very undesirous to meet with you again."
"Well, and I'm pleased to see you're cautious too," said the Writer. "But I think ye take a risk to lay so considerable a sum at my discretion."
"I'll have to run the hazard," I replied.--"O, and there's another service I would ask, and that's to direct me to a lodging, for I have no roof to my head. But it must be a lodging I may seem to have hit upon by accident, for it would never do if the Lord Advocate were to get any jealousy of our acquaintance."
"Ye may set your weary spirit at rest," said he. "I will never name your name, sir; and it's my belief the Advocate is still so much to be sympathised with that he doesna ken of your existence."
I saw I had got to the wrong side of the man.
"There's a braw day coming for him, then," said I, "for he'll have to learn of it on the deaf side of his head no later than to-morrow, when I call on him."
"When ye _call_ on him!" repeated Mr. Stewart. "Am I daft, or are you? What takes ye near the Advocate?"
"Mr. Balfour," he cried, "are ye making a mock of me?"
"No, sir," said I, "though I think you have allowed yourself some such freedom with myself. But I give you to understand once and for all that I am in no jesting spirit."
"Nor yet me," says Stewart. "And I give you to understand (if that's to be the word) that I like the looks of your behaviour less and less. You come here to me with all sorts of propositions, which will put me in a train of very doubtful acts, and bring me among very undesirable persons this many a day to come. And then you tell me you're going straight out of my office to make your peace with the Advocate! Alan's button here or Alan's button there, the four quarters of Alan wouldna bribe me further in."