"A devil of a mouser, I am! I've been sitting
purring on the top and they have hollowed it out underneath me."
"Eh? What?"
"The cheese, Andy, the water-power cheese! They have been playing me for
the cat in the case! Left me till the last, left me sitting on an empty
shell! The mice have made away with the cheese from under me. They have
engineered a combine! There's a syndicate a-forming! It's for me to tumble
down among 'em when the shell caves. I was right about Despeaux!"
"He's Auld Bartie, wi'out the horns!"
"Oh no! Not as smart as Satan, Andy! But smart, nevertheless! Very smart.
He has shown 'em a good thing. They're ready to run in! And the devil take
the hindmost. I'm the hindmost and I'd better get a gait on."
"But the company ye'll be keeping!"
"You don't suppose that I'll run away from the mice instead of after 'em,
do you?"
"A thoct has been wi' me, Master Morrison! May I speak it?"
"Out with it!"
"Ye'll ne'er find a better chance to break from the kin o' Auld Cloven
Cootie and mind yer ain wi' the claith business! Resign!"
"It's good advice, backed up by a good excuse, Andy!"
"And noo that I may speak freely," rattled on the old man, after a gasp of
delight, "I can tell ye how I hae been list'nin' for yer interests till
ten o' the clock each forenoon, and the dyvor loons--deil tak' it, and
here cooms back one o' the waurst o' the widdifu's.
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