and lettin’ the boiler rust that bad a’ the salts o’ sorrel in the Apothecaries’ll no tak’ the stains aff your shirts.
“Whit’s wanted is a kin’ o’ slidin’ scale o’ sentiment on Christmas cairds, so that they’ll taper doon frae a herty greetin’ ye can truthfully send to a dacent auld freen’ and the kind o’ cool ‘here’s to ye!’ suited for an acquaintance that borrowed five shillin’s frae ye at the Term, and hasna much chance o’ ever payin’t back again.
“If it wasna for the Christmas cairds a lot o’ us wad maybe never jalouse there was onything parteecular merry aboot the season. Every man that ye’re owin’ an accoont to sends it to ye then, thinkin’ your hert’s warm and your pouches rattlin’. On Christmas Day itsel’ ye’re aye expectin’ something; ye canna richt tell whit it is, but there’s ae thing certain – that it never comes. Jinnet, my wife, made a breenge for the door every time the post knocked on Thursday, and a’ she had for’t at the end o’ the day was an ashet fu’ o’ whit she ca’s valenteens, a’ written on so that they’ll no even dae for next year.
“I used to wonder whit the banks shut for at Christmas, but I ken noo; they’re feart that their customers, cairried awa’ wi’ their feelin’ o’ guid-will to men, wad be makin’ a rush on them to draw money for presents, and maybe create a panic.
“Sae far as I can judge there’s been nae panic at the banks this year.”
“Every Ne’erday for the past fifty years I hae made up my mind I was gaun to be a guid man,” he went on. “It jist wants a start, they tell me that’s tried it, and I’m no’ that auld. Naething bates a trial.
“I’m gaun to begin at twelve o’clock on Hogmanay, and mak’ a wee note o’t in my penny diary, and put a knot in my hankie to keep me in mind. Maist o’ us would be as guid’s there’s ony need for if we had naething else to think o’. It’s like a man that’s hen-taed – he could walk fine if he hadna a train to catch, or the rent to rin wi’ at the last meenute, or somethin’ else to bother him. I’m gey faur wrang if I dinna dae the trick this year, though.
“Oh! ay. I’m gaun to be a guid man. No’ that awfu’ guid that auld freen’s’ll rin up a close to hide when they see me comin’, but jist dacent – jist guid enough to please mysel’, like Duffy’s singin’. I’m no’ makin’ a breenge at the thing and sprainin’ my leg ower’t. I’m startin’ canny till I get into the wye o’t. Efter this Erchie MacPherson’s gaun to flype his ain socks and no’ leave his claes reel-rail aboot the hoose at night for his wife Jinnet to lay oot richt in the mornin’. I’ve lost money by that up till noo, for there was aye bound to be an odd sixpence droppin’ oot and me no’ lookin’. I’m gaun to stop skliffin’ wi’ my feet; it’s sair on the boots. I’m gaun to save preens by puttin’ my collar stud in a bowl and a flet-iron on the top o’t to keep Erchie’s Flitting it frae jinkin’ under the chevalier and book-case when I’m sleepin’. I’m gaun to wear oot a’ my auld waistcoats in the hoose. I’m – ”
“My dear Erchie,” I interrupted, “these seem very harmless reforms.”
“Are they?” said he. “They’ll dae to be gaun on wi’ the noo, for I’m nae phenomena; I’m jist Nature; jist the Rale Oreeginal.”
II ERCHIE’S FLITTING
He came down the street in the gloaming on Tuesday night with a bird-cage in one hand and a potato-masher in the other, and I knew at once, by these symptoms, that Erchie was flitting.
“On the long trail, the old trail, the trail that is always new, Erchie?” said I, as he tried to push the handle of the masher as far up his coat sleeve as possible, and so divert attention from a utensil so ridiculously domestic and undignified.
“Oh, we’re no’ that bad!” said he. “Six times in the four-and-forty year. We’ve been thirty years in the hoose we’re leavin’ the morn, and I’m fair oot o’ the wye o’ flittin’. I micht as weel start the dancin’ again.”
“Thirty years! Your household gods plant a very firm foot, Erchie.”
“Man, ay! If it wisna for Jinnet and her new fandangles, I wad nae mair think o’ flittin’ than o’ buyin’ a balloon to mysel’; but ye ken women! They’re aye gaun to be better aff onywhaur else than whaur they are. I ken different, but I havena time to mak’ it plain to Jinnet.”
On the following day I met Erchie taking the air in the neighbourhood of his new domicile, and smoking a very magnificent meerschaum pipe.
“I was presented wi’ this pipe twenty years ago,” said he, “by a man that went to California, and I lost it a week or twa efter that. It turned up at the flittin’. That’s ane o’ the advantages o’ flittin’s; ye find things ye havena seen for years.”
“I hope the great trek came off all right, Erchie?”
“Oh, ay! no’ that bad, considerin’ we were sae much oot o’ practice. It’s no’ sae serious when ye’re only gaun roond the corner to the next street. I cairried a lot o’ the mair particular wee things roond mysel’ last nicht – the birdcage and Gledstane’s picture and the room vawzes and that sort o’ thing, but at the hinder-end Jinnet made me tak’ the maist o’ them back again.”
“Back again, Erchie?”
“Ay. She made oot that I had cairried ower sae muckle that the flittin’ wad hae nae appearance on Duffy’s cairt, and haein’ her mind set on the twa rakes, and a’ the fancy things lying at the close-mooth o’ the new hoose till the plain stuff was taken in, I had just to cairry back a guid part o’ whit I took ower last nicht. It’s a rale divert the pride o’ women! But I’m thinkin’ she’s vex’t for’t the day, because yin o’ the things I took back was a mirror, and it was broke in Duffy’s cairt. It’s a gey unlucky thing to break a lookin’-gless.”
“A mere superstition, Erchie.”
“Dod! I’m no’ sae shair o’ that. I kent a lookin’-gless broke at a flittin’ afore this, and the man took to drink a year efter’t, and has been that wye since.”
“How came you to remove at all?”
“It wad never hae happened if I hadna gane to a sale and seen a coal-scuttle. It’s a dangerous thing to introduce a new coal-scuttle into the bosom o’ your faimily. This was ane o’ thae coal-scuttles wi’ a pentin’ o’ the Falls o’ Clyde and Tillitudlem Castle on the lid. I got it for three-and-tuppence; but it cost me a guid dale mair nor I bargained for. The wife was rale ta’en wi’t, but efter a week or twa she made oot that it gar’d the auld room grate we had look shabby, and afore ye could say knife she had in a new grate wi’ wally sides till’t, and an ash-pan I couldna get spittin’ on. Then the mantelpiece wanted a bed pawn on’t to gie the grate a dacent look, and she pit on a plush yin. Ye wadna hinder her efter that to get plush-covered chairs instead o’ the auld hair-cloth we got when we were mairried. Her mither’s chist-o’-drawers didna gae very weel wi’ the plush chairs, she found oot in a while efter that, and they were swapped wi’ twa pound for a chevalier and book-case, though the only books I hae in the hoose is the Family Bible, Buchan’s Domestic Medicine,’ and the ‘Tales o’ the Borders.’ It wad hae been a’ richt if things had gane nae further, but when she went to a sale hersel’ and bought a Brussels carpet a yaird ower larig for the room, she made oot there was naethin’ for’t but to flit to a hoose wi’ a bigger room. And a’ that happened because a pented coal-scuttle took ma e’e.”
“It’s an old story, Erchie; ‘c’est le premier pas que coute,’ as the French say.”
“The French is the boys!” says Erchie, who never gives himself away. “Weel, we’re flittin’ onywye, and a bonny trauchle it is. I’ll no’ be able to find my razor for a week or twa.”
“It’s a costly process, and three flittin’s are worse than a fire, they say.”
“It’s worse nor that; it’s worse nor twa Irish lodgers.
“‘It’ll