semple for cr'aturs like hiz 'at's made sae mixed-like, an' see
sae little intill the hert o' things?"

"Ye're ayont me there," said Blue Peter, and a silence followed.

It was a conversation very unsuitable to London Streets--but
then these were raw Scotch fisherman, who had not yet learned how
absurd it is to suppose ourselves come from anything greater than
ourselves, and had no conception of the liberty it confers on a man
to know that he is the child of a protoplasm, or something still
more beautifully small.

At length a policeman directed them to a Scotch eating house, where
they fared after their country's fashions, and from the landlady
gathered directions by which to guide themselves towards Curzon
Street, a certain number in which Mr Soutar had given Malcolm as
Lady Bellair's address.

The door was opened to Malcolm's knock by a slatternly charwoman,
who, unable to understand a word he said, would, but for its fine
frank expression, have shut the door in his face. From the expression
of hers, however, Malcolm suddenly remembered that he must speak
English, and having a plentiful store of the book sort, he at once
made himself intelligible in spite of tone and accent. It was,
however, only a shifting of the difficulty, for he now found it
nearly impossible to understand her. But by repeated questioning
and hard listening he learnt at last that Lady Bellair had removed
her establishment to Lady Lossie's house in Portland Place.

After many curious perplexities, odd blunders, and vain endeavours