“Anither thing that has helped to spoil oor tred is the smokin’ concerts. I tak’ a draw o’ the pipe mysel’ whiles, but I never cared to mak’ a meal o’t. Noo and then when I’m no’ very busy other ways I gie a hand at a smoker, and it mak’s me that gled I got ower my growth afore the thing cam’ into fashion; but it’s gey sair on an auld man to hear ‘Queen o’ the Earth’ five or six nichts in the week, and the man at the piano aye tryin’ to guess the richt key, or to get done first, so that the company’ll no’ rin awa’ when he’s no’ lookin’ withoot paying him his five shillin’s. “I’ve done the waitin’ at a’ kinds o’ jobs in my time,--Easy-gaun Erchie they ca’ me sometimes in the tred--a flet fit but a warm hert; I’ve even handed roond seed-cake and a wee drap o’ spirits at a burial, wi’ a bereaved and mournfu’ mainner that greatly consoled the weedow; but there’s nae depths in the business so low as poo’in’ corks for a smokin’ concert. And the tips get smaller and smaller every ane I gang to. At first we used to get them in a schooner gless; then it cam’ doon to a wee tumbler; and the last I was at I got the bawbees in an egg-cup.” IV. THE BURIAL OF BIG MACPHEE |Erchie looked pityingly at Big Macphee staggering down the street. “Puir sowl!” said he, “whit’s the maitter, wi’ ye noo?” Big Macphee looked up, and caught his questioner by the coat collar to steady himself. “Beer,” said he; “jist beer. Plain beer, if ye want to ken. It’s no’ ham and eggs, I’ll bate ye. Beer, beer, glorious beer; I’m shair I’ve perished three gallons this very day. Three gallons hiv I in me, I’ll wager.” “Ye wad be far better to cairry it hame in a pail,” said Erchie. “Man, I’m rale vexed to see a fine, big, smert chap like you gaun hame like this, takin’ the breadth o’ the street.” “Hiv I no’ a richt to tak’ the breadth o’ the street if I want it?” said Big Macphee. “Am I no’ a ratepayer? I hiv a ludger’s vote, and I’m gaun to vote against Joe Chamberlain and the dear loaf.” “Och! ye needna fash aboot the loaf for a’ the difference a tax on’t’ll mak’ to you,” said Erchie. “If ye gang on the wye ye’re daein’ wi’ the beer, it’s the Death Duties yer freends’ll be bothered aboot afore lang.” And he led the erring one home. Big Macphee was the man who for some months back had done the shouting for Duffy’s lorry No. 2. He sustained the vibrant penetrating quality, of a voice like the Cloch fog-horn on a regimen consisting of beer and the casual hard-boiled egg of the Mull of Kintyre Vaults. He had no relatives except a cousin “oot aboot Fintry,” and when he justified Erchie’s gloomy prediction about the Death Duties by dying of pneumonia a week afterwards, there was none to lament him, save in a mild, philosophical way, except Erchie’s wife, Jinnet.