"Oh! I knew your husband quite well, Mrs. Morrison," declared John Greig, for no shrewder or more well-informed person was there between the Lowlands and Cromarty. "I knew him twenty years ago. Do you recollect Mr. Buchanan, who had an office in St. Vincent Street, Glasgow, and with whom he went into partnership? Mr. Buchanan died about four years ago. I went to visit him once at that beautiful house of his on Loch Rannoch." "Then you knew Mr. Buchanan!" cried Mrs. Morrison. "He was a dear fellow. My husband was devoted to him. Together they built up the works." "I know. Everyone in commercial circles in Glasgow knows how closely they worked together, and, Mrs. Morrison, I may tell you that not a worker on the Clyde has any but good words for your husband and his partner. The conditions of work in your husband’s place at Govan were always ideal. We hear much of labour trouble in these post-bellum days, but if all works were like your husband’s there would be little to grumble at." "It is awfully good of you to pay such a tribute to my husband’s regard for his employees," said Mrs. Morrison, much gratified. "He and I often discussed their welfare, and I always agreed with him that labour should be duly paid and there should be no sweating. We have Socialist propaganda on the Clyde to-day, but is it at all astonishing in view of the high prices, of Government muddle and waste, and the advancement into society by the King’s favour in the shape of ’honours’ of bare-faced swindlers and those who escape under the more euphonious name of profiteers?" "Ah! I’m glad that you have realised the deadly peril of Britain, Mrs. Morrison," Greig said. "As a business man in Glasgow—I am an exporter to the East—I know much of what is transpiring among the Socialists, and I know the deadly peril of Britain to-day." The fact that Greig had known not only her husband but his partner, Buchanan, appealed to Mrs. Morrison, with the result that he had frequent chats with her, and incidentally with her friend, Ena Pollen, whose belongings he had so carefully scrutinised in her absence. The man from Glasgow, with his round, merry, well-shaven face, a countenance of prosperity, was a typical man of business, and he appealed to old Morrison’s widow as a very nice man. With her estimate Ena, any suspicion utterly disarmed, entirely agreed. Pleasant, humorous, and careless in his relaxation from money-making in grim and grimy Glasgow, John Greig was an excellent fellow on holiday. His estimate of women—for he was a bachelor—coincided entirely with that of Ena Pollen. To be frank, he had, in the course of conversation, gauged her views regarding her own sex, and he at once sought to cultivate her acquaintance upon her line of thought.