“But if ye ever flitted yersel’, ye’ll ken the funny wyes o’ the waxcloth that’s never cut the same wye in twa hooses; and I’ll need to be gey thrang at my tred for the next month of twa to pay for the odds and ends that Jinnet never thought o’. “Duffy flitted us for naethin’, but ye couldna but gie the men a dram. A flittin’ dram’s by-ordinar; ye daurna be scrimp wi’t, or they’ll break your delf for spite, and ye canna be ower free wi’t either, or they’ll break everything else oot o’ fair guid-natur. I tried to dae the thing judeecious, but I forgot to hide the bottle, and Duffy’s heid man and his mate found it when I wasna there, and that’s wye the lookin’ gless was broken. Thae cairters divna ken their ain strength. “It’s a humblin’ sicht your ain flittin’ when ye see’t on the tap o’ a coal-lorry.” “Quite so, Erchie; chiffoniers are like a good many reputations--they look all right so long as you don’t get seeing the back of them.” “And cairters hae nane o’ the finer feelin’s, I think. In spite o’ a’ that Jinnet could dae, they left the pots and pans a’ efternoon on the pavement, and hurried the plush chairs up the stair at the first gae-aff. A thing like that’s disheartenin’ to ony weel-daein’ woman. “‘Hoots!’ says I to her, ‘whit’s the odds? There’s naebody heedin’ you nor your flittin’.’ “‘Are they no’?’ said Jinnet, keekin’ up at the front o’ the new land. ‘A’ the Venetian blinds is doon, and I’ll guarantee there’s een behind them.’ “We werena half-an-oor in the new hoose when the woman on the same stairheid chappet at the door and tellt us it was oor week o’ washin’ oot the close. It wasna weel meant, but it did Jinnet a lot o’ guid, for she was sitting in her braw new hoose greetin’.” “Greetin’, Erchie? Why?” “Ask that! Ye’ll maybe ken better nor I dae.” “Well, you have earned your evening pipe at least, Erchie,” said I. He knocked out its ashes on his palm with a sigh. “I hiv that! Man, it’s a gey dauntenin’ thing a flittin’, efter a’. I’ve a flet fit, but a warm hert; and efter thirty years o’ the auld hoose I was swear’t to leave’t. I brocht up a family in’t, and I wish Jinnet’s carpet had been a fit or twa shorter, or that I had never seen yon coal-scuttle wi’ the Falls o’ Clyde and Tillitudlem Castle.” III DEGENERATE DAYS “The tred’s done,” said Erchie. “What! beadling?” I asked him.