Cash: A Problem of Profit and Loss

PART I.

"Gold may be dear bought."

A narrow street with dreadful "wynds" and "vennels" running back from it
was the High street of Glasgow at the time my story opens. And yet,
though dirty, noisy and overcrowded with sin and suffering, a flavor of
old time royalty and romance lingered amid its vulgar surroundings; and
midway of its squalid length a quaint brown frontage kept behind it
noble halls of learning, and pleasant old courts full of the "air of
still delightful studies."

From this building came out two young men in academic costume. One of
them set his face dourly against the clammy fog and drizzling rain,
breathing it boldly, as if it was the balmiest oxygen; the other,
shuddering, drew his scarlet toga around him and said, mournfully,
"Ech, Davie, the High street is an ill furlong on the de'il's road! I
never tread it, but I think o' the weary, weary miles atween it and
Eden."

"There is no road without its bad league, Willie, and the High street
has its compensations; its prison for ill-doers, its learned college,
and its holy High Kirk. I am one of St. Mungo's bairns, and I'm not
above preaching for my saint."

"And St. Mungo will be proud of your birthday yet, Davie. With such a
head and such a tongue, with knowledge behind, and wit to the fore,
there is a broad road and an open door for David Lockerby. You may come
even to be the Lord Rector o' Glasgow College yet."

"Wisdom is praised and starves; I am thinking it would set me better to
be Lord Provost of Glasgow city."

"The man who buried his one talent did not go scatheless, Davie; and
what now if he had had ten?"

"You are aye preaching, Willie, and whiles it is very untimeous. Are you
going to Mary Moir's to-night?"

"Why should I? The only victory over love is through running away."

David looked sharply at his companion but as they were at the Trongate
there was no time for further remark. Willie Caird turned eastward
toward Glasgow Green, David hailed a passing omnibus and was soon set
down before a handsome house on the Sauchiehall Road. He went in by the
back door, winning from old Janet, in spite of herself, the grimmest
shadow of a smile.

"Are my father and mother at home, Janet?"

"Deed are they, the mair by token that they hae been quarreling anent
you till the peacefu' folks like mysel' could hae wished them mair
sense, or further away."

"Why should they quarrel about me?"

"Why, indeed, since they'll no win past your ain makin' or marring? But
the mistress is some kin to Zebedee's wife, I'm thinking, and she