Act I

(James Wylie is about to make a move on the dambrod, and in the
little Scotch room there is an awful silence befitting the occasion.
James with his hand poised--for if he touches a piece he has to play
it, Alick will see to that--raises his red head suddenly to read
Alick's face. His father, who is Alick, is pretending to be in a
panic lest James should make this move. James grins heartlessly, and
his fingers are about to close on the 'man' when some instinct of
self-preservation makes him peep once more. This time Alick is
caught: the unholy ecstasy on his face tells as plain as porridge
that he has been luring James to destruction. James glares; and, too
late, his opponent is a simple old father again. James mops his head,
sprawls in the manner most conducive to thought in the Wylie family,
and, protruding his underlip, settles down to a reconsideration of
the board. Alick blows out his cheeks, and a drop of water settles on
the point of his nose.

You will find them thus any Saturday night (after family worship,
which sends the servant to bed); and sometimes the pauses are so long
that in the end they forget whose move it is.

It is not the room you would be shown into if you were calling
socially on Miss Wylie. The drawing-room for you, and Miss Wylie in a
coloured merino to receive you; very likely she would exclaim, "This
is a pleasant surprise!" though she has seen you coming up the avenue
and has just had time to whip the dustcloths off the chairs, and to
warn Alick, David and James, that they had better not dare come in to
see you before they have put on a dickey. Nor is this the room in
which you would dine in solemn grandeur if invited to drop in and
take pot-luck, which is how the Wylies invite, it being a family
weakness to pretend that they sit down in the dining-room daily. It
is the real living-room of the house, where Alick, who will never get
used to fashionable ways, can take off his collar and sit happily in
his stocking soles, and James at times would do so also; but catch
Maggie letting him.

There is one very fine chair, but, heavens, not for sitting on; just
to give the room a social standing in an emergency. It sneers at the
other chairs with an air of insolent superiority, like a haughty
bride who has married into the house for money. Otherwise the
furniture is homely; most of it has come from that smaller house
where the Wylies began. There is the large and shiny chair which can
be turned into a bed if you look the other way for a moment. James
cannot sit on this chair without gradually sliding down it till he is
lying luxuriously on the small of his back, his legs indicating, like
the hands of a clock, that it is ten past twelve; a position in which