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 sollemn 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