Toppy looked across the table, amazed and pained. “Why—what’s wrong, Scotty?” he stammered. “Tush, lad!” snapped the old man. “Dinna think I meant it. I only told Reivers so for the effect.” Toppy was bewildered. “I don’t see what you’re driving at, Scotty.” “Listen, then; I ha’ told Reivers that you were getting the swell head so bad there was no working you. I ha’ told him you were at heart nothing but a fresh young whiffet who needed taming, and gi’n he made me keep you here I mysel’ would do the taming with an ax-handle. Do you begin to get my drift now, lad?” “I confess I don’t,” admitted Toppy. “Well, then—Reivers said: ‘That’s how I sized him up, too. But don’t you do the taming, Campbell,’ says he. ‘I am saving him for mysel’,’ he says. ‘But I will not put up with his lip longer,’ said I. ‘Man, Reivers,’ I says, ‘he thinks he’s a fighter, and the other day I slammed him on his back mysel’; and gi’n I had my old wind,’ I says, ‘I would have whipped him then and there.’ “Oh, carried on strong, losing my temper and all. ‘Five year ago I would ha’ broken his back, the big young fool!’ I says. ‘An’ he swaggers around me and thinks he’s a boss man because he licked that bloat Sheedy. Ah!’ I says. ‘I’ll stand it till he gives me lip again; then I’ll lay him out with whatever I have in my hands,’ says I. “‘Don’t do it,’ says Reivers, smiling to see me so worked up, and surmising, as I intended he should, that I was angry only because I’d discovered that you were a better man than mysel’. ‘Save him for me,’ says he. ‘As soon as I have more time I will ’tend to him. In the meantime,’ he says, ‘let him go on thinking he is a good man.’ “Lad, he swallowed it all, for it’s four years since he knew me first, and that was the first lie I’d told him at all. ‘I’ll take him under my eye soon as I have more time,’ says he. ‘He’ll not swagger after I’ve tamed him a little.’” “But I don’t just see——” “Dolt! Dinna you see that noo he considers you as an overconfident young fool whom he’s going to take the conceit out of? Dinna ye see that noo you’re in the same category as the other men he’s broken down? He’ll not think it worth while to have his shotgun men handy noo when he starts in to do his breaking. He’ll start it, ye understand; not you. ’Twill be proper so. I will go this morning and tell him that the end has come; that I can not stand you longer around me. He’ll give you something to do—under him. Under him, do you see? Then you must e’en watch your chance, and—and happen I’ll manage to be around in case the guards should show up.” “Better keep out of it altogether,” said Toppy. “They won’t use their guns in an even fight, and you couldn’t do anything with your bare hands if they did.”