IHREE HOURS GONE， MR. MACLEAN， THREE HOURS<br > --and never a word of the lifeboat.<br > You can imagine just how it was. There were only<br > the four of us there--Eachan， Torry Mor， old Grant，<br > and myself. Talk? Never a word among the lot of us，<br > nor even the heart of a dram--and there on the table，<br > was a new bottle of Talisker， and Eachan not looking<br > for a penny.<br > We just sat there like a lot of stookies， Seumas<br > Grant with his expressionless face and yon wicked<br > old pipe of his bubbling away， and the rest of us des-<br > perately busy with studying the pattern of the wall-<br >ii paper. Listening to the screech of the wind， we were，<br > and the haft like chuckles battering against the win-<br >I dows of the hotel. Dhia! What a night that was! And<br > the worst of it was， we couldn t do a thing but wait.<br >i My， but we were a right cheery crowd.<br > I think we all gave a wee bit jump when the tele-<br > phone rang. Eachan hurried away and was back in a<br > moment beaming all over. One look at yon great<br > moonface of his and we felt as if the Pladda Light-<br > house had been lifted off our backs.<br > "Four glasses， gentlemen， and see s over the Ta-<br >