“Mr. Higginbotham,” I said, “my business was to represent life in a Scots parish, within limits, as I had seen it, and although I say it with deep regret, and hope the matter will never be mentioned outside this room, every Scot is not a rigid and bigoted abstainer--a few, I hope fewer every year, do 'taste.'” “We are all perfectly aware of that, and more than a few,”--which was not generous on his part,--“but that is not the question. It is whether you, as a respectable--and I would fain believe in spite of what I have read--Christian man, ought deliberately to condone and countenance this conduct.” “Surely, sir, you do not suppose for one moment that I have the slightest sympathy with intemperance, or that I did not deeply regret the habits into which Posty had fallen! Had I known that you or any intelligent person would have imagined such a thing, I would have added footnotes, whenever Posty forgot himself, such as (1) The author deeply regrets Posty's conduct; (2) The author repudiates Posty's language with all his heart.” “It might have saved misunderstanding.” Elijah regarded me dubiously. “I would certainly not have judged that you felt so strongly from the book.” “Ah, there you are wrong, for again and again I simply wrestled with Posty to take the blue ribbon; but you know one should not boast, and it would have sounded egotistical to obtrude these efforts, unhappily unsuccessful, in the book. “It is,” I ventured to add with some pathos, “very hard that I should first of all have had to suffer from my association, even in a literary sense, with Posty, and then afterwards to be treated by religious and philanthropic persons as if I had been his boon companion.” “No, no; don't put words in my mouth,” broke in Elijah. “I said nothing of the kind; but you have not been careful to convey your own position.” “Mr. Higginbotham, if I might give you a word of advice, do not meddle with fiction, for you never can tell into what company you may come. Why, I may tell you that 'Posty,' before his lamented death, used to haunt this room--in a literary sense, of course--and some evenings I was terrified. “If he were (comparatively) sober he would confine himself to the news of the district, and the subject of her Majesty's mails; but if he had been tasting he always took to theology, as Scots generally do, and then he grew so profound and eloquent on the doctrine of election that if you had come in my character would have been worth nothing: you would have jumped to the conclusion, not without reason, that he had got his refreshments here.” “You will excuse me,” said Elijah, who had lost his customary expression of cocksureness during the last few minutes, “I am out of touch with the market: am I not right in understanding that the Postman was never alive?”