“Are you seriously trying to argue with me, Lindsay-Wolseley, that this impudent epistle is on the same level as my drastic but completely justifiable attempt to solve the hiker problem in the Highlands once and for all? I never heard a more preposterous comparison.”

“What is the difference?” the Colonel pressed.

“The difference is that I had a perfect right to give a lesson to those hikers trespassing on my land,” Ben Nevis declared angrily.

“That way lies anarchy,” the Colonel retorted.

“Look here, Lindsay-Wolseley, I don’t often lose my temper, but if a guest at my own table is to sit there and call me a Bolshevist I warn you I may not be able to keep my temper.”

“My dear Ben Nevis, you are the very last person in this world to whom I would apply such an epithet. What I said was that if you arrogate to yourself the right to take the law into your own hands you are inviting other people to do the same, the result of which will be anarchy.”

“I suppose you’ll argue next I have no right to take immediate steps to rescue my guest from the hands of these detestable Cockney brigands? I suppose you expect me to notify that beetroot-headed police constable at Kenspeckle and ask him to do it for me?”

“Constable MacGillivray is one of the best fellows we have in the County Police,” said the Colonel warmly. “I take strong exception to your describing him as beetrootheaded.”

“He is beetroot-headed. His face is the colour and shape of a beetroot, and any brains he has are the brains of a beetroot.”

“Surely I’m in a better position to assess his qualities than you? In fact I have so high an opinion of MacGillivray that I’ve just pressed for his promotion to Sergeant, promotion which he thoroughly deserves.”

Ben Nevis snorted.

“You might as well press for the promotion of a beetroot, Lindsay-Wolseley. Anyway, I’m not going to notify Mac-Gillivray that one of my guests has been carried off by hikers. I know exactly the sort of silly expression he’d have on his beetroot-face after riding up from Kenspeckle on that bicycle of his.”

“Well, what are you going to do, Ben Nevis?” the Colonel asked.

“I’m going to beat the glen for hikers all to-night and to-morrow …”

“Don’t forget to-morrow’s Sunday, Ben Nevis,” put in the chaplain, who, though no Sabbatarian himself, knew what a tremendous sermon any beating of the glens and straths and bens of Mac ’ic Eachainn’s country would evoke from the Reverend Alexander Munro of the United Free Church in Strathdun.