“New sartorial splendour, Erchie?” I said, and pinched him for luck.
He got very red.
“You’re awfu’ gleg in the een,” said he; “am I no’ daein’ my best to let
on they’re an auld pair cleaned? Blame the wife for’t! there’s naethin’
o’ the la-di-da aboot easy-gaun Erchie. But weemen! claes is their hale
concern since the day that Adam’s wife got the shape o’ a sark frae the
deevil, and made if wi’ a remender o’ fig-leafs.
“There’s no much wrang wi’ Jinnet, but she’s far ower pernicketty aboot
whit her and me puts on, and if she has naething else to brag aboot
she’ll brag I hae aye the best-brushed buits in oor kirk. She took an
awfu’ thraw yince at yin o’ the elders, for she thocht he bate me wi’
the polish o’ his buits, and she could hardly sleep ower the heid o’t
till I tellt her they were patent.
“‘Och!’ says she, ‘is that a’? Patent’s no’ in the game.’
“‘Onything’s in the game,’ says I to her, ‘that’s chaper nor heeling and
soling.’
“It’s bad enough,” he went on, “to be hurtin’ yer knees wi’ new breeks,
and haein’ the folk lookin’ at ye, but it’s a mercy for you and me we’re
no’ weemen. You and me buys a hat, and as lang’s the rim and the rest
o’t stick thegither, it’s no’ that faur oot the fashion: we need to hide
oorsel’s. The only thing I see changes in is collars, and whether it’s
the lying-doon kind or the double-breisted chats, they hack yer neck
like onything. There’s changes in ties, but gie me plain black.
“Noo, Jinnet has to hae the shape o’ her hat shifted every month as
regular’s a penny diary. If it’s flet in June, it’s cockin’ up in July;
and if the bash is on the left side in August, it has to be on the right
side in September.
“Och! but there’s no’ muckle wrang wi’ Jinnet for a’ that; she wanted to
buy me a gold watch-chain last Fair.
“‘A gold watch-chain’s a nice, snod, bien-lookin’ thing aboot a man,’
she says, ‘and it’s gey usefu’.’
“No, nor usefu’,’ says I; ‘a watch-chain looks fine on a man, but it’s
his gallowses dae the serious wark.’”
“Still, Erchie,” I said, “our sex can’t escape criticism for its
eccentricities of costume either. Just fancy our pockets, for instance!”
“Ye’re right, there,” Erchie agreed; “hae I no’ fifteen pouches mysel’
when I hae my topcoat on? If I put a tramway ticket into yin’ o’ them I
wadna be able to fin’ oot which o’ them it was in for an’oor or twa.
“Pockets is a rale divert. Ye canna dae with-oot nine or ten in Gleska
if ye try yer best. In the country it’s different. Doon aboot Yoker, and
Gargunnock, and Deid Slow and them places, a’ a man needs in the wye
o’ pouches is twa trooser yins--yin for each haund when he’s leanin’
against a byre-door wonderin’ whit job he’ll start the morn.
“There’s a lot o’ fancy wee pouches that’ll no’ haud mair nor a
pawn-ticket aboot a Gleska man’s claes, but in the country they dae wi’
less and dig them deep.
“Sae faur as I can see, the pouch is a new-fashioned thing a’thegither.
Look at them auld chaps ye see in pictures wi’ the galvanised or
black-leaded airn suits on; if yin o’ them wanted a pouch he wad need
to cut it himsel’ wi’ a sardine-opener, and then he wad peel a’ his
knuckles feelin’ for his hankey or the price o’ a pint. I’m gled I wisna
gaun aboot when them galvanised airn suits was the go; it must hae been
awfu’ sair on the nails scratchin’ yersel’. Yer claes were made then
in a biler-works. When ye went for the fit-on, the cutter bashed in the
slack bits at the back wi’ a hammer and made it easier for ye under the
oxter wi’ a cauld chisel.
“‘I want it higher at the neck,’ says you.
“‘Right!’ says he, quite game, and bangs in twa or three extra rivets.
And your wife, if ye had yin, had to gie your suits a polish up every
Friday when she was daein’ the kitchen grate.
“It was the same when the Hielan’s was the wye ye read aboot in books,
and every Hielan’-man wore the kilts.
“There was nae pocket in a pair o’ kilts.
“I daursay that was because the Hielan’man never had onything worth
while to put in a pocket if he had yin. He hung his snuff-mull and
his knife and fork ootside his claes, and kept his skean-dhu in his
stockin’. . .
“It’s a proof that weemen’s no’ richt ceevilised yet that they can be
daein’, like the men I’m speakin’ aboot, withoot ony pooches. Jinnet
tells me there’s nae pooch in a woman’s frock nooadays, because it wad
spoil her sate on the bicycle. That’s the wye ye see weemen gaun aboot
wi’ their purses in their haunds, and their bawbees for the skoosh car
inside their glove, and their bonny wee watches that never gang because
they’re never rowed up, hinging just ony place they’ll hook on to
ootside their claes.
“I was yince gaun doon to Whiteinch on a Clutha to see a kizzen o’ the
wife’s, and Jinnet was wi’ me. Me bein’ caury-haunded, I got aff
by mistake at Govan on the wrang side o’ the river, when Jinnet was
crackin’ awa’ like a pen-gun wi’ some auld wife at the sherp end o’ the
boat, and she didna see me.
“‘Oh! Erchie!’ she says when she cam’ hame, ‘the time I’ve put in! I
thocht ye wis drooned.’
“‘And ye hurried hame for the Prudential Insurance book, I suppose?’
says I.
“‘No,’ says she, ‘but I made up my mind to hae a pooch o’ my ain
efter this, if I merrit again, to haud my ain Clutha fares, and no’ be
lippenin’ to onybody.’”