Gavinia thought she heard the chink of another five shillings, and her mouth opened so wide that a chaffinch could have built therein.  “Is he to look for a bottle in the pond?” she asked, eagerly.

“I do,” replied McLean with such solemnity that she again retired to the coal-cellar.

That evening Mr. McLean cast a bottle into the Silent Pool, and subsequently called on Mr. Cathro, to whom he introduced himself as one interested in Master Thomas Sandys.  He was heartily received, but at the name of Tommy, Cathro heaved a sigh that could not pass unnoticed.  “I see you don’t find him an angel,” said Mr. McLean, politely.

“’Deed, sir, there are times when I wish he was an angel,” the dominie replied so viciously that McLean laughed.  “And I grudge you that laugh,” continued Cathro, “for your Tommy Sandys has taken from me the most precious possession a teacher can have—­my sense of humor.”

“He strikes me as having a considerable sense of humor himself.”

“Well he may, Mr. McLean, for he has gone off with all mine.  But bide a wee till I get in the tumblers, and.  I’ll tell you the latest about him—­if what you want to hear is just the plain exasperating truth.

“His humor that you spoke of,” resumed the school-master presently, addressing his words to the visitor, and his mind to a toddy ladle of horn, “is ill to endure in a school where the understanding is that the dominie makes all the jokes (except on examination-day, when the ministers get their yearly fling), but I think I like your young friend worst when he is deadly serious.  He is constantly playing some new part—­playing is hardly the word though, for into each part he puts an earnestness that cheats even himself, until he takes to another.  I suppose you want me to give you some idea of his character, and I could tell you what it is at any particular moment; but it changes, sir, I do assure you, almost as quickly as the circus-rider flings off his layers of waistcoats.  A single puff of wind blows him from one character to another, and he may be noble and vicious, and a tyrant and a slave, and hard as granite and melting as butter in the sun, all in one forenoon.  All you can be sure of is that whatever he is he will be it in excess.”

“But I understood,” said McLean, “that at present he is solely engaged on a war of extermination in the Den.”

“Ah, those exploits, I fancy, are confined to Saturday nights, and unfortunately his Saturday debauch does not keep him sober for the rest of the week, which we demand of respectable characters in these parts.  For the last day or two, for instance, he has been in mourning.”

“I had not heard of that.”

“No, I daresay not, and I’ll give you the facts, if you’ll fill your glass first.  But perhaps—­” here the dominie’s eyes twinkled as if a gleam of humor had been left him after all—­“perhaps you have been more used of late to ginger wine?”