“----like Duffy’s goldie, and that rale weel put-on. Each o’ them had as muckle gold and silver aboot him as wad fill a bakie. I nearly fented when yin o’ them spoke to me awfu’ Englified, and askit whit he could dae for me the day. “‘Oh,’ says I, ‘I see ye’re throng; I’ll can come back anither time,’ and I was makin’ for the door when he cried me back, and said he wasna that throng but that he wad be gled to dae onything he could for me. I thocht he wad gie me the money wi’ a grudge when he found I wanted twa pound ten in silver, but he coonted it oot like lichtnin’, and bangs it foment me. A rale obleegin’ lad he was, but no’ lookin’ awfu’ strong; I think I’ll knit him a pair o’ warm socks or a muffler for his New Year.” “Ye’re a rale divert, Jinnet!” said Erchie. “I jist picked up the money withoot coontin’ it and turned to gang awa’. ‘Hold on, Mistress MacPherson,’ he cries; ‘ye’ll be as weel to coont yer siller afore ye leave the bank in case I’m cheatin’ ye,’ and my face got as red’s the fire. ‘I wadna hae the cheek to doot ye efter seein’ ye coontin’t yersel’,’ I tellt him, and cam’ awa’. But I went up a close further along the street and coonted it.” “I could bate a pound ye did,” said Erchie. And now, having got out her money, Jinnet had to go shopping. Ordinary shopping had no terrors for her; she loved to drop into Lindsay, the grocer’s, and discourse upon the prices of simple things to eat, and feel important when he offered to send his boy with the goods; she was quite at home in the little side-street shops where they sell trimming, and bolts of tape, and remnants of print; or the oil and colour shops where she was known and could spend a pleasant ten minutes’ gossip over the purchase of a gallon of paraffin. But Christmas shopping was no ordinary shopping, and was entered on with almost as much apprehension as her expedition to the bank. It had to be done in big warehouses, where the attendants were utter strangers to her, and had ways frigid and unfamiliar. “Put on your kep and come awa’ doon the toon wi’ me,” she said to Erchie. “I hate gaun into some o’ thae big shops mysel’.” “Then whit wye dae ye no’ jist gang into the wee yins ye ken?” he asked her. “If ye’re feared they’ll eat ye in the big yins I wadna gang to them.” “Oh, that’s a’ very weel, but the wee yins havena the turnover,” she explained. “Ye get things far fresher at this time o’ the year doon the toon.” “I’ll gang wi’ ye, for I ken that if I didna gang they wad tak’ a fair lend o’ ye,” Erchie agreed at last; “but mind, I’m no’ gaun to stand lookin’ in at baby-linen shop-windows or onything o’ that sort. Me bein’ a public man in a kind o’ wye, it disna dae.” “I’ll no’ ask ye to dae onything o’ the kind, ye pridefu’ auld thing ye,” she promised, and off, they set. She wanted a pair of gloves for a favourite grand-daughter, an umbrella for a sister of Erchie’s, who was a widow and poor, and something as a wedding-present for Duffy’s fiancee.