“Why not to-night?” said the young master. “Come along now, Harry. Do be a good fellow. Why it’s just to-night of all nights that we want you. There’s my cousin Charteris, and there’s an Englishman; and we’re all as flat as the Clyde. Come along, Muir, don’t disoblige us.” “I am very sorry,” said Muir, “but I can’t stay in town to-night. Let me off to-night; I will be more obedient next time.” “He wants to get home to nurse his wife,” said Buchanan, with a sneer. “My wife is quite well,” answered Harry, with a quick flush of anger; “she does not need my nursing, Mr. Buchanan.” “_Mr._ Buchanan! don’t be ill-natured, Harry--come along.” “No, no; I cannot go to-night. I don’t think I can stay to-night,” said the brilliant facile clerk. The entreaties continued a little longer; the resistance became feebler and more feeble, and at last, stipulating that he was to leave them early, the genius of the counting-house consented. “Harry, my man, send a message to your wife,” said a grave snuffy person, who enjoyed the two hundred pounds a year of which John had boasted, and was cashier to the Messrs. Buchanan. Harry wavered a moment. “Where is the boy?” “Perhaps she’ll come for you, Harry,” suggested the malicious Buchanan. The poor clerk threw down, angrily, the pen he had taken up, and lifted his hat. In another minute, with quickly recovered gaiety, they went out in a band to the adjacent square where they were to dine. “There’s the makings of a capital man in that lad, and there’s the makings of a blackguard,” said the grave Mr. Gilchrist, shaking his head ruefully, and taking a pinch of snuff; “it’ll be a hard race--which of them will win?” The dinner in George’s-square went off very well, and the young clerk, as he warmed, dazzled the little company; he was only a clerk--they were inclined to patronize him at other times--but now the unmistakeable, undesired, pre-eminence, which these young men yielded to their poor companion, was a noticeable thing. The matter of ambition now, was, who should seem most intimate with--who should most attract the attention of the brilliant clerk. Cuthbert Charteris was a more completely educated man than any other of the party. The thorough literary training will not ally itself to the commercial, as it seems. None of the young merchants had time for the long discipline and athletic mental exercises of the student. They were all making money before they should have been well emancipated from the school-room--all independent men, when they should have been boys--and the contrast was marked enough. There was a good deal of boisterousness in their enjoyment, and they were enjoying themselves heartily, while Cuthbert, getting very weary, felt himself only preserved from utter impatience of their mirth by the interest with which the stranger inspired him--this poor, clever, facile Harry Muir.