"Good Lord, McEwan, can't you speak English?" exclaimed Byrd, with quick
exasperation.

"I hae to speak the New York lingo when I get back there, ye ken,"
replied the Scot with imperturbable good humor, "so I like to use a wee
bit o' the guid Scotch while I hae the chance."

"A wee bit!" snorted Stefan, and "Good morning, Mr. McEwan, isn't it
beautiful up here?" interposed Miss Elliston, pleasantly.

"It's grand," replied the Scotchman, "and ye look bonnie i' the sun," he
added simply.

"So Mr. Byrd thinks. You see he has just been painting me," she answered
smilingly, indicating, with a touch of mischief, the drawing that Stefan
had hastily slipped between them.

The Scotchman stooped, and, before Stefan could stop him, had the sketch
in his hand.

"It's a guid likeness," he pronounced, "though I dinna care mesel' for
yon new-fangled way o' slappin' on the color. I'll mak'ye a suggestion--"
But he got no further, for Stefan, incoherent with irritation, snatched
the sketch from his hands and broke out at him in a stammering torrent of
French of the Quarter, which neither of his listeners, he was aware,
could understand. Having safely consigned all the McEwans of the universe
to pig-sties and perdition, he walked off to cool himself, the sketch
under his arm, leaving both his hearers incontinently dumb.

McEwan recovered first. "The puir young mon suffers wi' his temper,