They welcomed him all, with nod, or grin, or merry word, in individual fashion, as each sat measuring out his whisky, or pounding at the slow-dissolving sugar, or tasting the mixture with critical soul seated between tongue and palate.
The conversation was for some time very dull, with a strong tendency to the censorious.

For in their circle, not only were the claims of respectability silently admitted, but the conduct of this and that man of their acquaintance, or of public note, was pronounced upon with understood reference to those claims--now with smile of incredulity or pity, now with headshake regretful or condemnatory--and this all the time that each was doing his best to reduce himself to a condition in which the word conduct could no longer have meaning in reference to him.
All of them, as did their hostess, addressed Galbraith as Sir George, and he accepted the title with a certain unassuming dignity.
For, if it was not universally known in the city, it was known to the best lawyers in it, that he was a baronet by direct derivation from the hand of King James the Sixth.
The fire burned cheerfully, and the kettle making many journeys between it and the table, things gradually grew more lively.
Stories were told, often without any point, but not therefore without effect; reminiscences, sorely pulpy and broken at the edges, were offered and accepted with a laughter in which sober ears might have detected a strangely alien sound; and adventures were related in which truth was no necessary element to reception.

In the case of the postman, for instance, who had been dismissed for losing a bag of letters the week before, not one of those present believed a word he said; yet as he happened to be endowed with a small stock of genuine humour, his stories were regarded with much the same favour as if they had been authentic.

But the revival scarcely reached Sir George.

He said little or nothing, but, between his slow gulps of toddy, sat looking vacantly into his glass.