“I havena been awa’ at a Fair mysel’ since aboot the time Wullie was in the Foondry Boys, and used to gang to the Hielan’s. I mind o’t fine. Nooadays, in oor hoose, ye wad never jalouse it was the Fair at a’ if it wasna for the nae parridge in the mornin’s. “Ye’ll hae noticed, maybe, that though we’re a’ fearfu’ fond o’ oor parridge in Scotland, and some men mak’ a brag o’ takin’ them every mornin’ just as if they were a cauld bath, we’re gey gled to skip them at a holiday, and just be daein’ wi’ ham and eggs. “But in thae days, as I was sayin’, the Fair was something like the thing. There was Mumford’s and Glenroy’s shows, and if ye hadna the money to get in, ye could aye pap eggs at the musicianers playing on the ootside, and the thing was as broad as it was lang. Forbye ye didna get the name o’ bein’ keen on the theatricals if your faither was parteecular. “I mind ance I hit a skeely-e’ed trombone, or maybe it was an awfuclyde, wi’ an egg at Vinegar Hill. The glee pairty--as ye might ca’ him if ye were funny--chased me as far doon as the Wee Doo Hill. I could rin in thae days; noo I’ve ower flet feet, though I’ve a warm hert too, I’m tellin’ ye. “If ye werena at the Shows in thae days ye went a trip wi’ the steamer _Bonnie Doon_, and ye had an awfu’ fine time o’t on the Setturday if ye could jist mind aboot it on the Sunday mornin’. Duffy’s gey coorse, bein’ in the retail coal trade and cry in’ for himsel’; I’m no’ like that at a’ mysel’; it widna dae, and me in the poseetion, but I mind ance o’ Duffy tellin’ me he could never fa’ asleep at the Fair Time till his wife gave him the idea o’ lyin’ on his left side, and coontin’ yin by yin a’ the drams he had the night afore. He said it worked on him like chloryform. “I hope ye’ll no’ mind me speakin’ aboot drink; it’s awfu’ vulgar coonted noo, I hear, to let on ye ever heard that folk tak’ it, but in thae days there was an awfu’ lot o’t partaken o’ aboot Gleska. I’m tellt noo it’s gaen clean oot o’ fashion, and stane ginger’s a’ the go, and I see in the papers every Monday efter the Fair Setturday that ‘there has been a gratifying decrease in the number o’ cases at the Central Police Court compared wi’ last year.’ I’m that gled! I have been seein’ that bit o’ news in the papers for the last thirty years, and I hae nae doot that in a year or twa drunks and disorderlies’ll be sae scarce in Gleska at the Fair, the polis’ll hae to gang huntin’ for them wi’ bloodhounds. “It’s a fine thing the Press. It’s aye keen to keep oor herts up. Ye’ll notice, perhaps, that at every Gleska holiday the papers aye say the croods that left the stations were unprecedented. They were never kent to be ony ither wye.