KINMONT WILLIE


A venerable and highly respected Scottish professor of literature was
once asked what was his ruling passion--his heart's desire? If the
secrets of his soul could be laid bare, what, above all, would be found
to be his predominant wish? The question was an indiscreet one, but he
was tolerant. He tightly compressed his gentle mouth, and firmly
readjusted his gold-rimmed glasses.

"I _wish_" said he, "to be a corsair."

It would have been interesting to know how many of a following he would
have had from sedate academic circles had he been given his heart's
desire and had sailed down the Clyde with the raw head and bloody bones
showing on the black flag that flew at his mast-head. How many of us are
there with whom law-abiding habits, decorous respectability, form but a
thin covering of ice over unplumbed depths of lawless desire? Not long
since, when a wretched criminal case in which the disappearance of a
pearl necklace was involved, was agitating every Scottish club and
tea-table, a charming old Scottish lady, whose career from childhood up
has been one of unblemished virtue, was heard to bemoan the manner of
commission of the crime. "She did it _very_ stupidly. Now, if _I_ had
been doing it I should"--And her astounded auditors listened to an able
exposition of the way in which she would successfully have eluded
justice. Is it the story of the villain who is successfully tracked to
his doom that attracts us most? or that of the great Raffles and his