It was the Fiscal who approached the Collector, as was most meet, and he considered that the best time was after dinner, and when the two were discussing their second glass of port “That's a sound wine, Collector, and a credit to a Muirtown firm. Remarkable man, old Sandeman; established a good port in Scotland and invented a new denomination, when to save my life I couldn't have thought of another.” “So far as I can judge, I do not think that Sandemanianism is any credit to Muirtown. How any Scots Kirkman can sink down into that kind of thing passes me. But the wine is unexceptionable, and I never tasted any but good wine at your table; yet I suppose young men would prefer claret--not the rich claret Scots gentlemen used to drink, but that feeble Gladstone stuff,” and the Collector wagged his head in sorrow over the decadent taste of the day. “I quite agree with you, Collector, but you know _de gustibus_; and when the young fellows do me the honour of dining with me, I let them have their claret: there must be give and take between the seniors and juniors, eh, Collector?”--this with some adroitness. “There I venture to disagree with you, Fiscal,” and the Collector's face hardened at once. “It is the young who ought to yield to the old; I see no reason why the old should give in to the young; if they do, the end will be anarchy in Church and State.” “There is a great deal in what you say, Collector; but have you never been afraid that if we of the old school refuse to make any concessions, we shall simply lose our influence, and things will be done foolishly, which, with our help, might have been done wisely?” “If there be one word I detest, it is 'concessions'; they are ruinous, both in the Civil Service and in the Church; and it just comes to this, Fiscal: if you yield an inch, you must yield a yard. Nothing will preserve order save resistance from the beginning, _obsta principiis_, yes, _obsta principiis._.” The Fiscal recognised the expression on the Collector's face, and knew that it was useless to continue the subject, and so his labour was also in vain.