Drilling is going on--I was going to say night and day, for it is pretty nearly that--and no one can make out what it is all about.
"There is one thing--no one asks questions.

His majesty thinks for his subjects, and as he certainly is the cleverest man in his dominions, everyone is well content that it should be so.
"And now, about yourself.

I am running on and talking nonsense, when I have all sorts of questions to ask you.

But that is always the way with me.

I am like a bottle of champagne, corked down while I am in the palace, and directly I get away the cork flies out by itself, and for a minute or two it is all froth and emptiness.
"Now, when did you arrive, how did you arrive, what is the last news from Scotland, which of the branches of the Drummonds do you belong to, and how near of kin are you to the marshal?
Oh, by the way, I ought to know the last without asking; as you are a Drummond, and a relation of Keith, you can be no other than the son of the Drummond of Tarbet, who married Margaret Ogilvie, who was a first cousin of Keith's." "That is right," Fergus said.