LESLIE. I know it, Mr. Brodie. Was I not the last in the same class? (_To_ MARY.) But he seems to have forgotten us. MARY. O yes! his mind is wellnigh gone. He will sit for hours as you see him, and never speak nor stir but at the touch of Will’s hand or the sound of Will’s name. LESLIE. It is so good to sit beside you. By and by it will be always like this. You will not let me speak to the Deacon? You are fast set upon speaking yourself? I could be so eloquent, Mary—I would touch him. I cannot tell you how I fear to trust my happiness to any one else—even to you! MARY. He must hear of my good fortune from none but me. And besides, you do not understand. We are not like families, we Brodies. We are so clannish, we hold so close together. LESLIE. You Brodies, and your Deacon! OLD BRODIE. Deacon of his craft, sir—Deacon of the Wrights—my son! If his mother—his mother—had but lived to see! MARY. You hear how he runs on. A word about my brother and he catches it. ’Tis as if he were awake in his poor blind way to all the Deacon’s care for him and all the Deacon’s kindness to me. I believe he only lives in the thought of the Deacon. There, it is not so long since I was one with him. But indeed I think we are all Deacon-mad, we Brodies. Are we not, daddie dear? BRODIE (_without_, _and entering_). You are a mighty magistrate, Procurator, but you seem to have met your match. SCENE II _To these_, BRODIE and LAWSON. MARY (_curtseying_). So, uncle! you have honoured us at last. LAWSON. _Quam primum_, my dear, _quam primum_. BRODIE. Well, father, do you know me? (_He sits beside his father and takes his hand_.) [OLD BRODIE. William—ay—Deacon. Greater man—than—his father. BRODIE. You see, Procurator, the news is as fresh to him as it was five years ago. He was struck down before he got the Deaconship, and lives his lost life in mine. LAWSON. Ay, I mind. He was aye ettling after a bit handle to his name. He was kind of hurt when first they made me Procurator.] MARY. And what have you been talking of? LAWSON. Just o’ thae robberies, Mary. Baith as a burgher and a Crown offeecial, I tak’ the maist absorbing interest in thae robberies. LESLIE. Egad, Procurator, and so do I. BRODIE (_with a quick look at_ LESLIE). A dilettante interest, doubtless! See what it is to be idle. LESLIE. Faith, Brodie, I hardly know how to style it. BRODIE. At any rate, ’tis not the interest of a victim, or we should certainly have known of it before; nor a practical tool-mongering interest, like my own; nor an interest professional and official, like the Procurator’s. You can answer for that, I suppose? LESLIE. I think I can; if for no more. It’s an interest of my own, you see, and is best described as indescribable, and of no manner of moment to anybody. [It will take no hurt if we put off its discussion till a month of Sundays.]