* Abuse.

The manager sat at his desk when Hilda went in.  He did not rise—­ he was one of those highly sagacious little Scotchmen that Dundee exports in such large numbers to fill small posts in the East, and she had come on business.  He gave her a nod, however, and an affectionate smile, and indicated with his blue pencil a chair on the other side of the table.  He had once made three hundred rupees in tea shares, and that gave him the air of a capitalist and speculator gamely shrewd.  Tapping the table with his blue pencil he asked Miss Howe how the world was using her.

“Let me see,” said Hilda, a trifle absent-mindedly, “were you here last cold weather—­I rather imagine you were, weren’t you?”

“I was; I had the pleasure of—­”

“To be sure.  You got the place in December, when that poor fellow Baker died.  Baker was a country-bred I know, but he always kept his contracts, while you got your po-lish in Glesca, and your name is Macphairson—­isn’t it?”

“I was never in Glasgow in my life, and my name is Macandrew,” said the manager, putting with some aggressiveness a paper-weight on a pile of bills.

“Never mind,” said Hilda, again wrapped in thought, “don’t apologise—­it’s near enough.  Well, Mr. Macandrew,”—­her tone came to a point,—­“what is the Stanhope Company’s advertisement worth a month to the Chronicle?”

“A hundred rupees maybe—­there or thereabouts;” and Mr. Macandrew, with a vast show of indifference, picked up a letter and began to tear at the end of it.

“One hundred and fifty-five I think, to be precise.  That communication will wait, won’t it?  What is it—­Kally Nath Mitter’s paper and stores bill?  You won’t be able to pay it any quicker if we withdraw our advertisement.”

“Why should ye withdraw it?”

“It was given to you on the understanding that notices should appear of every Wednesday and Saturday’s performance.  For two Wednesdays there has been no notice, and last Saturday night you sent a fool.”

“So Muster Stanhope thinks o’ withdrawin’ his advertisement?”

“He is very much of that mind.”

The manager put his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, leaned back in his chair, and demonstrated the principle that had given him a gold watch chain—­“never be bluffed.”

“Ye can withdraw it,” he said, with a warily experimental eye upon her.

“How reasonable of you not to make a fuss!  We’ll have the order to discontinue in writing, please.  If you’ll give me a pen and paper—­ thanks—­and I’ll keep a copy.”

“Stanhope has wanted to transfer it to the Market Gazette for some time,” she went on as she wrote.

“That’s not a newspaper.  You’ll get no notices there.”

“Cheaper on that account, probably.”

“They charge like the very deevil.  D’ye know the rates of them?”

“I can’t say I do.”