with a red paper on the walls, a fire burning, and a big oil lamp
in the centre of a table. Clearly Mr. Loudon had no wife, for it
was a bachelor's den in every line of it. A cloth was laid on
a corner of the table, in which stood the remnants of a meal.
Mr. Loudon seemed to have been about to make a brew of punch,
for a kettle simmered by the fire, and lemons and sugar flanked
a pot-bellied whisky decanter of the type that used to be known as
a "mason's mell."

The sight of the lawyer was a surprise to Dickson and dissipated his
notions of an aged and lethargic incompetent. Mr. Loudon was a
strongly built man who could not be a year over fifty. He had
a ruddy face, clean shaven except for a grizzled moustache;
his grizzled hair was thinning round the temples; but his skin was
unwrinkled and his eyes had all the vigour of youth. His tweed suit
was well cut, and the buff waistcoat with flaps and pockets and
the plain leather watchguard hinted at the sportsman, as did the
half-dozen racing prints on the wall. A pleasant high-coloured
figure he made; his voice had the frank ring due to much use
out of doors; and his expression had the singular candour which
comes from grey eyes with large pupils and a narrow iris.

"Sit down, Mr. McCunn. Take the arm-chair by the fire. I've had
a wire from Glendonan and Speirs about you. I was just going to
have a glass of toddy--a grand thing for these uncertain April nights.
You'll join me? No? Well, you'll smoke anyway. There's cigars at
your elbow. Certainly, a pipe if you like. This is Liberty Hall."

Dickson found some difficulty in the part for which he had cast himself.
He had expected to condescend upon an elderly inept and give him