"You should wait till you hear what I meant to say, Sweetheart," I went on, with as much dignity as I could muster. "There are plenty of characters you will like to be, in every one of the books, but I think it would be fair always to draw lots for the first choice!" "Yes--yes--oh, yes!" came the chorus, from three of the party. But Hugh John, strong in the indefeasible rights of man, only repeated, "_I_ said 'Bags Hatteraick!'" "Well, then," I said, "for this time Hatteraick is yours, but for the future it will be fairer to draw lots for first choice." "All right," growled Hugh John; "then I suppose I'll have to put up with a lot more heroes! Milksops, I call them!" "Which book shall we have next?" said Sweetheart, who was beginning to be rather ashamed of her heat. "I don't believe that you could tell us _Rob Roy!_" "Well, I can try," said I, modestly. For so it behooves a modern parent to behave in the presence of his children. "_She_," said Hugh John, pointing directly at his sister, "she read nearly half the book aloud, and we never came to Rob at all. That's why she asks for _Rob Roy_." "But there's all about Alan Breck in the preface--ripping, it is!" interpolated Sir Toady, who had been doing some original research, "tell us about him." But Alan Breck was quite another story, and I said so at once. _Rob Roy_ they had asked for. _Rob Roy_ they should have. And then I would stand or fall by their judgment. RED CAP TALES TOLD FROM ROB ROY THE FIRST TALE FROM "ROB ROY" FRANK THE HIGHWAYMAN FRANK OSBALDISTONE had come back from France to quarrel with his father. A merchant he would not be. He hated the three-legged stool, and he used the counting-house quills to write verses with. His four years in Bordeaux had spoiled him for strict business, without teaching him anything else practical enough to please his father, who, when he found that his son persisted in declining the stool in the dark counting-room in Crane Alley, packed him off to the care of his brother, Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone of Osbaldistone Hall in Northumberland, there to repent of his disobedience. "I will have no idlers about me," he said, "I will not ask even my own son twice to be my friend and my partner. One of my nephews shall take the place in the firm which you have declined." And old Mr. Osbaldistone, of the firm of Osbaldistone and Tresham, merchants in London town, being above all things a man of his word, Master Frank took to the North Road accordingly, an exile from his home and disinherited of his patrimony.