“Eh, man, whae’s denying it?” said my uncle.  “Pit it as ye please, hae’t your ain way; I’ll do naething to cross ye.  Just tell me what like ye’ll be wanting, and ye’ll see that we’ll can agree fine.”

“Troth, sir,” said Alan, “I ask for nothing but plain dealing.  In two words:  do ye want the lad killed or kept?”

“O, sirs!” cried Ebenezer.  “O, sirs, me! that’s no kind of language!”

“Killed or kept!” repeated Alan.

“O, keepit, keepit!” wailed my uncle.  “We’ll have nae bloodshed, if you please.”

“Well,” says Alan, “as ye please; that’ll be the dearer.”

“The dearer?” cries Ebenezer.  “Would ye fyle your hands wi’ crime?”

“Hoot!” said Alan, “they’re baith crime, whatever!  And the killing’s easier, and quicker, and surer.  Keeping the lad’ll be a fashious* job, a fashious, kittle business.”

     * Troublesome.

“I’ll have him keepit, though,” returned my uncle.  “I never had naething to do with onything morally wrong; and I’m no gaun to begin to pleasure a wild Hielandman.”

“Ye’re unco scrupulous,” sneered Alan.

“I’m a man o’ principle,” said Ebenezer, simply; “and if I have to pay for it, I’ll have to pay for it.  And besides,” says he, “ye forget the lad’s my brother’s son.”

“Well, well,” said Alan, “and now about the price.  It’s no very easy for me to set a name upon it; I would first have to ken some small matters.  I would have to ken, for instance, what ye gave Hoseason at the first off-go?”

“Hoseason!” cries my uncle, struck aback.  “What for?”

“For kidnapping David,” says Alan.

“It’s a lee, it’s a black lee!” cried my uncle.  “He was never kidnapped.  He leed in his throat that tauld ye that.  Kidnapped?  He never was!”

“That’s no fault of mine nor yet of yours,” said Alan; “nor yet of Hoseason’s, if he’s a man that can be trusted.”

“What do ye mean?” cried Ebenezer.  “Did Hoseason tell ye?”

“Why, ye donnered auld runt, how else would I ken?” cried Alan.  “Hoseason and me are partners; we gang shares; so ye can see for yoursel’ what good ye can do leeing.  And I must plainly say ye drove a fool’s bargain when ye let a man like the sailor-man so far forward in your private matters.  But that’s past praying for; and ye must lie on your bed the way ye made it.  And the point in hand is just this:  what did ye pay him?”

“Has he tauld ye himsel’?” asked my uncle.

“That’s my concern,” said Alan.

“Weel,” said my uncle, “I dinnae care what he said, he leed, and the solemn God’s truth is this, that I gave him twenty pound.  But I’ll be perfec’ly honest with ye:  forby that, he was to have the selling of the lad in Caroliny, whilk would be as muckle mair, but no from my pocket, ye see.”

“Thank you, Mr. Thomson.  That will do excellently well,” said the lawyer, stepping forward; and then mighty civilly, “Good-evening, Mr. Balfour,” said he.