Erchie, My Droll Friend. Munro Neil
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.
“Oh! there’s naethin’ wrang wi’ beadlin’,” said he; “there’s nae ups and doons there except to put the books on the pulpit desk, and they canna put ye aff the job if ye’re no jist a fair wreck. I’m a’ richt for the beadlin’ as lang’s I keep my health and hae Jinnet to button my collar, and it’s generally allo’ed – though maybe I shouldna say’t mysel’ – that I’m the kind o’ don at it roond aboot Gleska. I michtna be, if I wasna gey carefu’. Efter waitin’ at a Setterday nicht spree, I aye tak’ care to gie the bell an extra fancy ca’ or twa on the Sunday mornin’ jist to save clash and mak’ them ken Mac-Pherson’s there himsel’, and no’ some puir pick-up that never ca’d the handle o’ a kirk bell in his life afore.
“There’s no’ a man gangs to oor kirk wi’ better brushed boots than mysel’, as Jinnet’ll tell ye, and if I hae ae gift mair nor anither it’s discretioncy. A beadle that’s a waiter has to gae through life like the puir troot they caught in the Clyde the other day – wi’ his mooth shut, and he’s worse aff because he hasna ony gills – at least no’ the kind ye pronounce that way.
“Beadlin’s an art, jist like pentin’ photograph pictures, or playin’ the drum, and if it’s no’ in ye, naethin’ ‘ll put it there. I whiles see wee skina-malink craturs dottin’ up the passages in U.F. kirks carryin’ the books as if they were M.C.‘s at a dancin’-schule ball gaun to tack up the programme in front o’ the band; they lack thon rale releegious glide; they havena the feet for’t.
“Waitin’ is whit I mean; it’s fair done!
“When I began the tred forty-five year syne in the auld Saracen Heid Inn, a waiter was looked up to, and was well kent by the best folk in the toon, wha’ aye ca’d him by his first name when they wanted the pletform box o’ cigaurs handed doon instead o’ the Non Plus Ultras.
“Nooadays they stick a wally door-knob wi’ a number on’t in the lapelle o’ his coat, and it’s Hey, No. 9, you wi’ the flet feet, dae ye ca’ this ham?’
“As if ye hadna been dacently christened and brocht up an honest faimily!
“In the auld days they didna drag a halflin callan’ in frae Stra’ven, cut his nails wi’ a hatchet, wash his face, put a dickie and a hired suit on him, and gie him the heave into a banquet-room, whaur he disna ken the difference between a finger-bowl and a box o’ fuzuvian lichts.
“I was speakin’ aboot that the ither nicht to Duffy, the coalman, and he says, ‘Whit’s the odds, MacPherson? Wha’ the bleezes couldna’ sling roon’ blue-mange at the richt time if he had the time-table, or the menu, or whitever ye ca’t, to keep him richt?’
“‘Wha’ couldna’ sell coal,’ said I, ‘if he had the jaw for’t? Man, Duffy,’ says I, ‘I never see ye openin’ your mooth to roar coal up a close but I wonder whit wye there should be sae much talk in the Gleska Toon Cooncil aboot the want o’ vacant spaces.’
“Duffy’s failin’; there’s nae doot o’t. He has a hump on him wi’ carryin’ bags o’ chape coal and dross up thae new, genteel, tiled stairs, and he let’s on it’s jist a knot in his gallowses, but I ken better. I’m as straucht as a wand mysel’ – faith, I micht weel be, for a’ that I get to cairry hame frae ony o’ the dinners nooadays. I’ve seen the day, when Blythswood Square and roond aboot it was a’ the go, that it was coonted kind o’ scrimp to let a waiter hame withoot a heel on him like yin o’ thae Clyde steamers gaun oot o’ Rothesay quay on a Fair Settu’rday.
“Noo they’ll ripe your very hip pooches for fear ye may be takin’ awa’ a daud o’ custard, or the toasted crumbs frae a dish o’ pheasant.
“They needna’ be sae awfu’ feart, some o’ them. I ken their dinners – cauld, clear, bane juice, wi’ some strings o’ vermicelli in’t; ling-fish hash; a spoonfu’ o’ red-currant jeely, wi’ a piece o’ mutton the size o’ a domino in’t, if ye had time to find it, only ye’re no’ playin’ kee-hoi; a game croquette that’s jist a flaff o’ windy paste; twa cheese straws; four green grapes, and a wee lend o’ a pair o’ silver nut-crackers, the wife o’ the hoose got at her silver weddin’.
“Man! it’s a rale divert! I see big, strong, healthy Bylies and members o’ the Treds’ Hoose and the Wine, Speerit, and Beer Tred risin’ frae dinners like that, wi’ their big, braw, gold watch-chains hingin’ doon to their knees.
“As I tell Jinnet mony a time, it’s women that hae fair ruined dinner-parties in oor generation. They tak’ the measure o’ the appetities o’ mankind by their ain, which hae been a’thegether spoiled wi’ efternoon tea, and they think a man can mak’ up wi’ music in the drawin’-room for whit he didna get at the dinner-table.
“I’m a temperate man mysel’, and hae to be, me bein’ a beadle, but I whiles wish we had back the auld days I hae read aboot, when a laddie was kept under the table to lowse the grauvats o’ the gentlemen that fell under’t, in case they should choke themsel’s. Scotland was Scotland then!
“If they choked noo, in some places I’ve been in, it wad be wi’ thirst.
“The last whisk o’ the petticoat’s no roon’ the stair-landin’ when the man o’ the hoose puts the half o’ his cigarette bye for again, and says, ‘The ladies will be wonderin’ if we’ve forgotten them,’ and troosh a’ the puir deluded craturs afore him up the stair into the drawin’-room where his wife Eliza’s maskin’ tea, and a lady wi’ tousy hair’s kittlin’ the piano till it’s sair.
“‘Whit’s your opinion about Tschaikovski?’ I heard a wumman ask a Bylie at a dinner o’ this