occupied only by some gay galoots called crofters, and you can raise
a lawsuit and an imprecation on every acre. Then there's this
soul-subduing, sequestered spot, and what's left of the old bone-boiling
establishment, and the rights of fishing and peat-burning, and otherwise
creating a nuisance off the mainland. It cost the syndicate only a
hundred thousand dollars, half cash and half in Texan and Kentucky grass
lands. But we've carried the thing through."

"I congratulate you," said the consul.

"Thanks." Custer puffed at his cigar for a few moments. "That Sir James
MacFen is a fine man."

"He is."

"A large, broad, all-round man. Knows everything and everybody, don't
he?"

"I think so."

"Big man in the church, I should say? No slouch at a party canvass, or
ward politics, eh? As a board director, or president, just takes the
cake, don't he?"

"I believe so."

"Nothing mean about Jimmy as an advocate or an arbitrator, either, is
there? Rings the bell every time, don't he? Financiers take a back seat
when he's around? Owns half of Scotland by this time, I reckon."