Lorne’s eyebrows half-perceptibly twitched.  “They do ‘sir’ you a lot over there, don’t they?” he said.  “It was as much as I could do to get at what a fellow of that sort meant, tumbling over the ‘sirs’ he propped it up with.  Well, all kinds of people, all kinds of argument, I suppose, when it comes to trying to get ’em solid!  But I was going to say we are all hoping you’ll give us a part of your time while you’re in Elgin.  My family are looking forward to meeting you.  Come along and let me introduce you to my father now—­he’s only round the corner.”

“By all means!” said Hesketh, and they fell into step together.  As Lorne said, it was only a short distance, but far enough to communicate a briskness, an alertness, from the step of one young man to that of the other.  “I wish it were five miles,” Hesketh said, all his stall-fed muscles responding to the new call of his heart and lungs.  “Any good walks about here?  I asked Emmett, but he didn’t know—­supposed you could walk to Clayfield if you didn’t take the car.  He seems to have lost his legs.  I suppose parsons do.”

“Not all of them,” said Lorne.  “There’s a fellow that has a church over in East Elgin, Finlay his name is, that beats the record of anything around here.  He just about ranges the county in the course of a week.”

“The place is too big for one parish, no doubt,” Hesketh remarked.

“Oh, he’s a Presbyterian!  The Episcopalians haven’t got any hold to speak of over there.  Here we are,” said Lorne, and turned in at the door.  The old wooden sign was long gone.  “John Murchison and Sons” glittered instead in the plate-glass windows, but Hesketh did not see it.

“Why do you think he’ll be in here?” he asked, on young Murchison’s heels.

“Because he always is when he isn’t over at the shop,” replied Lorne.  “It’s his place of business—­his store, you know.  There he is!  Hard luck—­he’s got a customer.  We’ll have to wait.”

He went on ahead with his impetuous step; he did not perceive the instant’s paralysis that seemed to overtake Hesketh’s, whose foot dragged, however, no longer than that.  It was an initiation; he had been told he might expect some.  He checked his impulse to be amused, and guarded his look round, not to show unseemly curiosity.  His face, when he was introduced to Alec, who was sorting some odd dozens of tablespoons, was neutral and pleasant.  He reflected afterward that he had been quite equal to the occasion.  He thought, too, that he had shown some adaptability.  Alec was not a person of fluent discourse, and when he had inquired whether Hesketh was going to make a long stay, the conversation might have languished but for this.

“Is that Birmingham?” he asked, nodding kindly at the spoons.

“Came to us through a house in Liverpool,” Alec responded.  “I expect you had a stormy crossing, Mr Hesketh.”

“It was a bit choppy.  We had the fiddles on most of the time,” Hesketh replied.  “Most of the time.  Now, how do you find the bicycle trade over here?  Languishing, as it is with us?”