"Wait till you see," retorted Cleg. "You try me. I'm nae country gawk, but reared in the heart o' the toon. I can rin errands. I can howk[8] yairds for taties—or," he added, thinking of his flower-garden round the old construction hut, "for flooers. And if I dinna ken the way to do onything, I can find oot." The General appeared to consider. "Do you see that house over there among the trees—across the railway?" "Aye," said Cleg, "I canna help seein' it! It's big eneuch and ugly eneuch to be a jail!" "Do you think that you could keep that house in order?" "Me?" said Cleg, "me keep yon hoose—it's as big as the Infirmary." "I live there all by myself," said the General. "I can not have women about my place. The sight of them kills me. And I can not trust a grown man not to bring a woman about the place. I might try a lad." Cleg looked carefully from the General to the house and back again. He was not sure that it might not be a joke. "Have you a character?" asked the old man. "Aye," said Cleg, "Miss Celie wad gie me yin." The General turned pale and stamped with his foot. "A woman," he said, "I could not apply to a woman. There is always something odious about a woman's letter. I actually do not recover from the shock of handling the writing of one of them for days. Do you not know any one else?" "There's Maister Donald Iverach," said Cleg. "He wad gie me a character if I got Miss Celie to ask him," answered Cleg. "My nephew in Edinburgh, that young three-legged stool! You'll do nothing of the kind," cried the General. "I would not give a brass button for his own character. And besides, from the tone in which you speak, I have little doubt that the two persons you mention are contemplating matrimony. I do not wish any communication with anything so disgusting—much less when one of the parties is an ungrateful and grasping relative of my own." By this time Cleg had had enough of the General's catechism. "I'll be requiring a reference mysel'," he said, in the tone which he had heard Mistress Roy of the paper-shop adopt, when a new customer asked for a week's credit. "A what?" said the General, astonished. "A reference as to your moral character, if I am to serve in your house!" replied Cleg, unabashed. The General clapped his hands with unfeigned pleasure. "Bless you, my boy, you please me!" he said, chuckling; "do you know that it is more than fifty years since General Theophilus Ruff had such a thing?" "All right," said Cleg, "suppose we chance the moral characters." "Done!" said the old soldier, offering Cleg his hand. Cleg took it and wrung it hard.