Of course I scoffed at Mr Wardlaw's fears.

I could not have him spoiling all my plans by crying up a native rising for which he had not a scrap of evidence.
'Have you been writing to anybody ?' I asked him.
He said that he had told no one, but he meant to, unless things got better.

'I haven't the nerve for this job, Davie,' he said; 'I'll have to resign.

And it's a pity, for the place suits my health fine.

You see I know too much, and I haven't your whinstone nerve and total lack of imagination.' I told him that it was simply fancy, and came from reading too many books and taking too little exercise.