To make matters worse, my father was away from home. In the past year or two the old fellow had been hitting the bottle pretty hard—and pretty hard for him meant soaking up liquor in every waking moment. Once or twice they had had to put him away in a place in the country where the booze was sweated out of him and the pink mice which nibbled at his fingers and toes were shoo’ed away—that was what he said, anyway—but it seemed that they kept coming back, and he was off getting another “cure”.

“A fine thing,” sniffed old Morrison—we were at dinner on my first evening home, and I had hoped to have it in bed with Elspeth, but of course we had to do “the polite” by her parents—“a fine thing, indeed. He’ll drink himsel’ intae the grave, I suppose.”

“Probably,” says I. “His father and grand-father did, so I don’t see why he shouldn’t.”

Mrs Morrison, who in defiance of probability had grown with the years even more like a vulture, gave a gasp of disgust at this, and old Morrison said he didn’t doubt that the son of the house would follow in his ancestors’ besotted footsteps.

“Shouldn’t wonder,” says I, helping myself to claret. “I’ve got a better excuse than they had.”

“And whit does that mean, sir?” bridled old Morrison. I didn’t bother to tell him, so he started off on a great rant about ingratitude and perversity, and the dissolute habits of myself and my family, and finished up with his age-old lamentation about his daughter having married a wastrel and a ruffian, who hadn’t even the decency to stay at home with his wife like a Christian, but must be forever wandering like Ishmael….

“Hold on,” says I, for I was sick of this. “Since I married your daughter I have been twice abroad, on my country’s service, and on the first occasion at least I came home with a good deal of credit. I’ll wager you weren’t slow to boast about your distinguished son-in-law when I came back from India in ’42.”

“And what have ’ye made of it?” sneers he. “What are ye? A captain still, and like to remain one.”

“You’re never tired of reminding Elspeth in your letters that you keep this family, this house, and the rest of it. Buy me a majority, if military rank means so much to you.”

“Damn yer impudence!” says he. “Is it no’ enough that I keep you and yer drunken father oot o’ the poor’s-hoose, where ye belong?”

“I’d have thought so,” says I, “but if you want me to shoot up the military tree as well—why, it costs money, you know.”