“Hae ye ony nice valenteens?” he asked a boy behind the counter. “Is’t a comic ye mean?” asked the boy, apparently not much amazed at so strange an application from an elderly gentleman. “A comic!” said my friend in disdain. “Dae I look like the kind o’ chap that sends mock valenteens? If ye gie me ony o’ your chat I’ll tell yer mither, ye wee--ye wee rascal! Ye’ll be asking me next if I want a mooth harmonium. Dae ye think I’m angry wi’ the cook in some hoose roond in-the terraces because she’s-chief wi’ the letter-carrier? I’ll comic ye!” “Weel, it’s only comics we hae,” said the youthful shopkeeper; “the only ither kind we hae’s Christmas cairds, and I think we’re oot o’ them.” He was a business-like boy,--he flung a pile of the mock valentines on the counter before us. Erchie turned them over with contemptuous fingers. “It’s a gey droll age we live in,” said he to me. “We’re far ower funny, though ye wadna think it to see us. I have a great respect for valenteens, for if it wasna for a valenteen there maybe wadna hae been ony Jinnet--at least in my hoose. I wad gie a shillin’ for a rale auld-fashioned valenteen that gaed oot and in like a concertina, wi’ lace roond aboot it, and a smell o’ scent aff it, and twa silver herts on’t skewered through the middle the same as it was for brandering. Ye havena seen mony o’ that kind, laddie? Na, I daursay no’; they were oot afore your time, though I thocht ye micht hae some in the back-shop. They were the go when we werena nearly sae smert as we are nooadays. I’m gled I havena to start the coortin’ again.” He came on one of the garish sheets that was less vulgar than the others, with the picture of a young lady under an umbrella, and a verse of not unkindly doggerel. “That’ll hae to dae,” said he, “although it’s onything but fancy.” “I hope,” said I dubiously, “that Mrs Mac-Pherson will appreciate it.” “She’s the very yin that will,” he assured me as he put it in his pocket. “She’s like mysel’; she canna play the piano, but she has better gifts,--she has the fear o’ God and a sense o’ humour. You come up the morn’s nicht at eight, afore the post comes, and ye’ll see the ploy when she gets her valenteen. I’ll be slippin’ oot and postin’t in the forenoon. Though a young lassie canna get her valenteens ower early in the mornin’, a mairried wife’s’ll dae very weel efter her wark’s done for the day.” “It’s yersel’?” said Mrs MacPherson when I went to her door. “Come awa’ in. I kent there was a stranger comin’,--though indeed I wadna be ca’in’ you a stranger,--for there was a stranger on the ribs o’ the grate this mornin’, and a knife fell aff the table when we were at oor tea.” “Ay, and hoo knocked it aff deeliberate?” interposed her husband, rising to welcome me. “Oh, she’s the sly yin. She’s that fond to see folk come aboot the hoose she whiles knocks a knife aff the table to see if it’ll bring them.” “Oh, Erchie MacPherson!” cried his wife.