"Weel," said the builder, "mind ye behave yoursel'. Bring nae wild gilravage o' loons here, or oot ye gang." "Hearken ye, Maister," said Cleg. "There's no a boy atween Henry Place an' the Sooth Back that wull daur to show the ill-favoured face o' him within your muckle yett. I'll be the best watch that ever ye had, Maister Callendar. See if I'm no!" The builder smiled as he went away. He took the measuring-rod of white moulding in his hand, and looked at the marks to recall what particular business he had been employed upon. But even as he did so a thought struck him. He turned back. "Mind you," he said to Cleg, "the first time that ye bring the faither o' ye aboot my yaird, to the curb-stane ye gang wi' a' your traps and trantlums!" Cleg peeped elvishly out of his citadel. "My faither," he said, "is snug in a far grander hoose than yours or mine, Maister Callendar. He has ta'en the accommodation for a year, and gotten close wark frae the Gowvernment a' the time!" "What mean ye?" said the builder; "your faither never reformed?" "Na, no that," answered Cleg; "but he got a year for ganging intil anither man's hoose without speering his leave. And I was there and saw the judge gie him a tongue-dressing afore he spoke oot the sentence. 'One year!' says he. 'Make it three, my Lord!' says I frae the back of the coort. So they ran me oot; but my faither kenned wha it was, for he cried, 'May hunger, sickness, and trouble suck the life from ye, ye bloodsucking son of my sorrow! Wait till I get hoult o' ye! I'll make ye melt off the earth like the snow off a dyke, son o' mine though ye are!'" The respectable builder stood aghast. "And your ain faither said the like o' that till ye?" he asked, with a look of awe in his face as if he had been listening to blasphemy. "And what did you say to him?" "Faith! I only said, 'I hope ye'll like the oakum, faither!'" ADVENTURE XII. VARA KAVANNAH OF THE TINKLERS' LANDS. Cleg having finished his dispositions, shut to his door, and barred it with a cunning bolt, shot with string, which he had constructed till he should be able to find an old lock to manipulate with the craft inherited from his father. Then he set forth for the Tinklers' Lands, to visit his friends the Kavannahs. He had delivered his papers in the early morning, and now he was free till the evening. For since a threatened descent of the police, Mistress Roy, that honest merchant, had discouraged Cleg from "hanging round" after his work was finished. She attempted to do the discouraging with a broomstick or anything else that came handy. But Cleg was far too active to be struck by a woman. And, turning upon his mistress with a sudden flash of teeth like the grin of a wild cat, he sent that lady back upon the second line of her defences—into the little back shop where that peculiar company assembled which gave to Roy's paper-shop its other quality of shebeen.