"Yea, man!" said Willie Simpson, the joiner and undertaker from
Tillymains.
"So there's no muckle chance o' you getting ane, Willie," said Dauvit.
The joiner smoked thoughtfully for a while.
"Na, Dauvit," he said, "there's little chance o' an undertaker gettin' a title. You would think na that the man that coffined the likes o' Lloyd George wud get a knighthood."
Dauvit cackled.
"Honours are sold, as Jake says; they are never given for public services."
I am afraid the joke was lost on most of the assembly. Jake failed to see it. It is said that Jake has been known to laugh at a joke only once, and that was when the earth gave way beneath the minister's feet when he was conducting a service at a grave-side, and he fell into the open grave.
"Undertakin'," continued the joiner, "is a verra queer trade."
Jake shivered.
"I dinna ken how ye can do it," he said; "man, it wud gie me the scunners."