Category: Novels

The Right Stuff: Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton

I. "OATMEAL AND THE SHORTER CATECHISM" II. INTRODUCES A PILLAR OF STATE AND THE APPURTENANCES THEREOF III. "ANENT" IV. A TRIAL TRIP V. ROBIN ON DUTY VI. ROBIN OFF DUTY VII. A DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP VIII. OF A PIT THAT WAS DIGGED, AND WHO FELL INTO IT IX. THE POLICY OF THE...

Chapters

13. Chapter 13

Not that the remaining six are lacking in individuality. Monday is a depressed and reluctant individual; Tuesday is a full-blooded and energetic citizen; Wednesday a cheerful an...

10. Chapter 10

Dicky Lever was a hearty and not particularly intellectual youth of the What ho! type (if you know what I mean). He was employed in some capacity in a Government office, but his...

15. Chapter 15

However, as Cash remarked, "It is canvassing from door to door that does the trick, and there you have the bulge on Stridge. He's not a bad old buffer himself, but they hate his...

8. Chapter 8

The first of these is my daughter Phillis, of whom I have already made passing mention. She is six years old, and appears to be compounded of about equal parts of angelic innoce...

14. Chapter 14

The Division of Stoneleigh, which had hitherto done me the honour of returning me as its Member of Parliament, is a triangular tract of country in the north of England.

9. Chapter 9

Of Robin's attitude towards that pair of charmers Kitty could make little and I nothing. He kept his place and went his own way--rather ostentatiously, I thought--and appeared i...

3. Chapter 3

The first and most-serious-but-one ordeal in the life of Robert Chalmers Fordyce--so Robert Chalmers himself informed me years afterwards--was the examination for the Bursary wh...

6. Chapter 6

Three days later I introduced Robert Chalmers Fordyce into the bosom of my family. I had declined to give them any previous information about him, beyond a brief warning that th...

12. Chapter 12

What happened when Robin locked the door on himself and Dolly is now set down here. Strictly speaking it ought to come later, but there is no need to make a mystery about it. I...

18. Chapter 18

Once more I was back in the thick of it all, and till the closing of the poll at eight o'clock I strove, in company with Cash, Robin, and others, to direct the inclinations of m...

4. Chapter 4

Kitty, for one, insisted on it. She said that I was ruining my health in the service of an ungrateful country, and added that she, personally, declined to be left a widow at twe...

11. Chapter 11

It is true that a noble relative, the head of my wife's family, offered his house for the reception, but Dilly emphatically declined to be married from any but mine, saying pret...

16. Chapter 16

Two minutes later we were driving back to the Cathedral Arms. It was snowing heavily, but I never noticed the fact. Neither did I realise that I had abandoned my post at a criti...

19. Chapter 19

It was long after midnight, and most of the hotel servants had gone to bed. But one waiter of political leanings, who had been an enthusiastic witness of the proceedings in the...

17. Chapter 17

Before I left the hotel I struck a bargain with Cash. I would go anywhere and do anything, but he was to give me a written itinerary of my movements for the day, clearly stating...

7. Chapter 7

Beyond the fact that they are all desperately in earnest, all know each other, and occupy all the most responsible and lucrative posts on the face of the earth, Scotsmen are a c...

5. Chapter 5

We conversed awhile in whispers to avoid disturbing the other worshippers--I always feel like that in the British Museum--and finally abandoned our respective tasks and issued f...

20. Chapter 20

An old woman in a white mutch stands at the door of a farmhouse in a Scottish glen. Her face is wrinkled, and her dim eyes are peering down the track which leads from the steadi...

1. Chapter 1

I. "OATMEAL AND THE SHORTER CATECHISM" II. INTRODUCES A PILLAR OF STATE AND THE APPURTENANCES THEREOF III. "ANENT" IV. A TRIAL TRIP V. ROBIN ON DUTY VI. ROBIN OFF DUTY VII. A DI...

2. Chapter 2

XI. A MISFIRE XII. THE COMPLEAT ANGLER XIII. A HOSTAGE TO FORTUNE XIV. "TO DIE--WILL BE AN _AWFULLY_ BIG ADVENTURE" XV. TWO BATTLES XVI. "_QUI PERD, GAGNE_" XVII. IN WHICH ALL'S...