“‘Old friends, old favourites, Joy be with you at this Season,’ says the caird for the MacTurks, and ye canna but mind that every third week there’s a row wi’ Mrs MacTurk and your wife aboot the key o’ the washin’-hoose and lettin’ the boiler rust that bad a’ the salts o’ sorrel in the Apothecaries’ll no tak’ the stains aff your shirts. “Whit’s wanted is a kin’ o’ slidin’ scale o’ sentiment on Christmas cairds, so that they’ll taper doon frae a herty greetin’ ye can truthfully send to a dacent auld freen’ and the kind o’ cool ‘here’s to ye!’ suited for an acquaintance that borrowed five shillin’s frae ye at the Term, and hasna much chance o’ ever payin’t back again. “If it wasna for the Christmas cairds a lot o’ us wad maybe never jalouse there was onything parteecular merry aboot the season. Every man that ye’re owin’ an accoont to sends it to ye then, thinkin’ your hert’s warm and your pouches rattlin’. On Christmas Day itsel’ ye’re aye expectin’ something; ye canna richt tell whit it is, but there’s ae thing certain--that it never comes. Jinnet, my wife, made a breenge for the door every time the post knocked on Thursday, and a’ she had for’t at the end o’ the day was an ashet fu’ o’ whit she ca’s valenteens, a’ written on so that they’ll no even dae for next year. “I used to wonder whit the banks shut for at Christmas, but I ken noo; they’re feart that their customers, cairried awa’ wi’ their feelin’ o’ guid-will to men, wad be makin’ a rush on them to draw money for presents, and maybe create a panic. “Sae far as I can judge there’s been nae panic at the banks this year.” “Every Ne’erday for the past fifty years I hae made up my mind I was gaun to be a guid man,” he went on. “It jist wants a start, they tell me that’s tried it, and I’m no’ that auld. Naething bates a trial. “I’m gaun to begin at twelve o’clock on Hogmanay, and mak’ a wee note o’t in my penny diary, and put a knot in my hankie to keep me in mind. Maist o’ us would be as guid’s there’s ony need for if we had naething else to think o’. It’s like a man that’s hen-taed--he could walk fine if he hadna a train to catch, or the rent to rin wi’ at the last meenute, or somethin’ else to bother him. I’m gey faur wrang if I dinna dae the trick this year, though.