There was not very much conversation between the two young men as they went to Glasgow. Eddy, indeed, would talk for a few minutes from time to time in his usual way, but presently would fall into silence, from which he roused up feverishly with suppressed excitement in his eyes, to rattle on once more for a brief time, asking hasty and often absurd questions, and making fun of the answers which Archie in puzzled seriousness made. Humour had not much share in Archie’s constitution. He had been light-hearted enough in his earlier development, and joked like the rest in the rather noisy fun of the class to which he belonged; but his father’s return, and the revolution that had taken place in his existence, had taken all the fun out of Archie, and made life very serious to him. Eddy’s “chaff,” the light art of turning everything into ridicule, which, when there is no sympathetic ear to hear, falls so flat and sounds so dreary, perplexed his grave companion. Archie concluded charitably and not untruly that it was excitement that produced this varying behaviour, the dead silence and the chatter of speech. He believed that Eddy’s troubles about money and the relief he was himself about to bring to them were the cause. He himself thought that a hundred and fifty pounds was an immense sum, and that there was scarcely any embarrassment possible to a youth of his own age which could not be amply covered by that. Archie had known “fellows in debt” often enough, but a ten-pound note, or twenty at the outside, would have made their hearts dance. And he thought with a sense that he himself was acting the part of providence, that a complete and perfect deliverance must result in this case. He said to himself, that when Eddy had actually the money in his hands--which he intended to draw out himself and hand over in notes to his companion--his mind would be more calm.