"Over the wall?" repeated the smiling old gentleman, still
without letting his surprise come uppermost.

"I suppose I am not wrong, sir," continued MacIan, "in supposing
that these grounds inside the wall belong to you?"

The man in the panama looked at the ground and smoked
thoughtfully for a few moments, after which he said, with a sort
of matured conviction:

"Yes, certainly; the grounds inside the wall really belong to me,
and the grounds outside the wall, too."

"A large proprietor, I imagine," said Turnbull, with a truculent
eye.

"Yes," answered the old gentleman, looking at him with a steady
smile. "A large proprietor."

Turnbull's eye grew even more offensive, and he began biting his
red beard; but MacIan seemed to recognize a type with which he
could deal and continued quite easily:

"I am sure that a man like you will not need to be told that one
sees and does a good many things that do not get into the
newspapers. Things which, on the whole, had better not get into
the newspapers."

The smile of the large proprietor broadened for a moment under