“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 sort the ither nicht.
“‘I never heard o’ him,’ said the Bylie, wi’ a gant, ‘but if he’s in the
proveesion tred, there’ll be an awfu’ run on his shop the morn’s morn’.’
“Anither thing that has helped to spoil oor tred is the smokin’
concerts. I tak’ a draw o’ the pipe mysel’ whiles, but I never cared to
mak’ a meal o’t. Noo and then when I’m no’ very busy other ways I gie a
hand at a smoker, and it mak’s me that gled I got ower my growth afore
the thing cam’ into fashion; but it’s gey sair on an auld man to hear
‘Queen o’ the Earth’ five or six nichts in the week, and the man at the
piano aye tryin’ to guess the richt key, or to get done first, so that
the company’ll no’ rin awa’ when he’s no’ lookin’ withoot paying him his
five shillin’s.
“I’ve done the waitin’ at a’ kinds o’ jobs in my time,--Easy-gaun Erchie
they ca’ me sometimes in the tred--a flet fit but a warm hert; I’ve
even handed roond seed-cake and a wee drap o’ spirits at a burial, wi’
a bereaved and mournfu’ mainner that greatly consoled the weedow; but
there’s nae depths in the business so low as poo’in’ corks for a smokin’
concert. And the tips get smaller and smaller every ane I gang to. At
first we used to get them in a schooner gless; then it cam’ doon to a
wee tumbler; and the last I was at I got the bawbees in an egg-cup.”