Well, he became Such Indignant at seeing Mr Ewan, and sure that he was causing the bother, that he ordered him out of the basement at once, he was so against the Communists and the dreadful things they had done to the Common People in Russia. He told Mr Ewan he was dismissed on the spot, Such a Pity, Bailie Gawpus perhaps not as nice as he might have been—in fact, Mrs Gawpus admitted that her husband perhaps exceeded his powers, he laid hands on Mr Ewan to push him out. And then—it was dreadful, dreadful, a man old enough to be his father—Mr Ewan seized Bailie Gawpus by the collar of his coat and ran him out to the yard at the back, the Bailie almost dying of rage and heart-failure, and showed him—you know, the place that those awful basement people Used. And he asked how the Bailie would like to use it? And before the Dear Bailie could say anything at all he was down on his hands and knees and his face being Rubbed in It—feuch, wasn’t that awful? Worse still, the rest of the dreadful keelies came out from the basement and cheered and laughed and when Bailie Gawpus got up to his feet and threatened to send for a policeman Mr Ewan said there was no need to do that, he was off to get one himself and report the sanitary conditions of the place. So dreadful for the Bailie. He’d to pay up a week’s wages to Mr Ewan and promise to have a proper WC constructed; and the Bailie was just Boiling with Rage….

Almost every night after that weekend in Drumtochty Ellen would slip through her doorway, sly pussy-cat, and trip along to Ewan’s room, scratch on the door and be letten in, and taken and kissed and looked at and shaken, because they were mad and the day had seemed—Oh, so horribly long! And Ellen would forget the vexatious Scotch brats whom she tried to drum up the steep cliffs of learning, sour looks and old women and the stench from the drains of the Ecclesgriegs Middle, the sourly hysterical glares of Ena Lyon —everything every time in that blessed minute when inside Ewan’s door she was inside his arms, tight, arms hard and yet soft with their dark down fringe, Ewan’s face bent down to hers to that breathless moment when she thought she would die if he didn’t, in one second—oh, kiss her quick!

And he did, and her arms went up round his neck, fun, thrilly: you’d often wondered what men’s necks were for. And the two of you would stand still, so cuddled, not kissing, not moving, just in blessed content to touch, to hear the beating of each other’s hearts, each other’s breathing, know each other’s being, content and lovely, without shelter or shyness one from the other, blessed minute that was hardly equalled in all else, not even the minutes that followed it later.