for I was never in epistolary communication with that
hospitable outlaw) was simply an unlicensed publican, who
gave suppers after eleven at night, the Edinburgh hour of
closing. If you belonged to a club, you could get a much
better supper at the same hour, and lose not a jot in public
esteem. But if you lacked that qualification, and were an
hungered, or inclined toward conviviality at unlawful hours,
Colette's was your only port. You were very ill-supplied.
The company was not recruited from the Senate or the Church,
though the Bar was very well represented on the only occasion
on which I flew in the face of my country's laws, and, taking
my reputation in my hand, penetrated into that grim supper-
house. And Colette's frequenters, thrillingly conscious of
wrong-doing and 'that two-handed engine (the policeman) at
the door,' were perhaps inclined to somewhat feverish excess.
But the place was in no sense a very bad one; and it is
somewhat strange to me, at this distance of time, how it had
acquired its dangerous repute.

In precisely the same spirit as a man may debate a project to
ascend the Matterhorn or to cross Africa, John considered
Alan's proposal, and, greatly daring, accepted it. As he
walked home, the thoughts of this excursion out of the safe
places of life into the wild and arduous, stirred and
struggled in his imagination with the image of Miss Mackenzie
- incongruous and yet kindred thoughts, for did not each
imply unusual tightening of the pegs of resolution? did not
each woo him forth and warn him back again into himself?

Between these two considerations, at least, he was more than