"Suppose I call the police?" he said, with a heated face.

"And deny your most sacred dogma," said MacIan.

"Dogma!" cried the man, in a sort of dismay. "Oh, we have no
_dogmas_, you know!"

There was another silence, and he said again, airily:

"You know, I think, there's something in what Shaw teaches about
no moral principles being quite fixed. Have you ever read _The
Quintessence of Ibsenism_? Of course he went very wrong over the
war."

Turnbull, with a bent, flushed face, was tying up the loose piece
of the pommel with string. With the string in his teeth, he said,
"Oh, make up your damned mind and clear out!"

"It's a serious thing," said the philosopher, shaking his head.
"I must be alone and consider which is the higher point of view.
I rather feel that in a case so extreme as this..." and he went
slowly away. As he disappeared among the trees, they heard him
murmuring in a sing-song voice, "New occasions teach new duties,"
out of a poem by James Russell Lowell.

"Ah," said MacIan, drawing a deep breath. "Don't you believe in
prayer now? I prayed for an angel."

"An hour ago," said the Highlander, in his heavy meditative