In the middle of the meal the poet leaped up suddenly, checking himself, however, in the middle of his spring with a quick remembrance of the roof above him. "Preserve us, laddie, ye are a' wat!" "So would you," quoth Cleg, who in the congenial atmosphere of the cabin had recovered all his natural briskness, "gin ye had soomed Loch Spellanderie as weel as me! Even a pairish minister wad be wat then!" "Aye," said Auld Chairlie, sententiously, "that's juist like your poet. He hears ye tell a' aboot soomin' a loch. But he never thinks that ye wad hae to wat your claes when ye did it." "But ye didna' speak aboot it ony mair than me, Auld Chairlie!" retorted Poet Jock. "An' what for should I do that? I thocht the laddie maybe prefer't to 'bide wat!" said Auld Chairlie, with emphasis. "Ye are surely growin' doited, Chairles," said the poet; "ye took the Netherby clearin' hoose clerk for the General Manager o' the line the day afore yesterday!" "An' so micht onybody," replied Auld Chairlie, "upsetting blastie that he is! Sic a wame as the craitur cairries, wag-waggin' afore him. I declare I thocht he wad be either General Manager o' the line or the Provist o' Glescae!" "Haud your tongue, man Chairlie, and see if ye can own up, for yince! If we are to judge folk by their wames, gussy pig gruntin' in the trough wad be king o' men. But stop your haverin' and see if ye hae ony dry claes that ye can lend this boy. He'll get his death o' cauld if he lets them dry on him." But Auld Chairlie had nothing whatever in the way of change, except a checked red-and-white Sunday handkerchief for the neck. "And I hae nocht ava'!" exclaimed the poet. "Ye maun juist gang to your bed, my man, and I'll feed ye over the edge wi' a fork!" But Cleg saw in the corner the old flour sack in which the surfaceman had imported his last winter's flour. The bag had long been empty. "Is this ony use?" said Cleg. "I could put this on!" "Use," cried the poet, "what use can an auld flour sack be when a man's claes are wat?" "Aweel," said Cleg, "ye'll see, gin ye wait. Railway folk dinna ken a' thing, though they think they do!" So with that he cut a couple of holes at the corners, and made a still larger hole in the middle of the sack bottom. Then he disrobed himself with the utmost gravity, drew the empty sack over his head, and put his arms through the holes in the corners. "It only needs a sma' alteration at the oxters to fit like your very skin," he said. Then he took up Auld Chairlie's table-knife and made a couple of slits beneath the arms, "and there ye hae a comfortable suit o' claes." The poet burst into a great laugh and smote his thigh. "I never saw the match o' the loon!" he cried, joyously.