"I hadn't time to thank you, but I should have missed the train if you had not been prompt," she said.
Foster did not know if Scottish etiquette warranted anything more than a conventional reply, but he ventured to remark: "You certainly seemed to have cut things rather fine."
"I had to drive some distance and the hill roads were bad; then when we got to the town the streets were crowded."
"That would be sae," the old man agreed. "Hawick's gey thrang at the wool sales when the yarn trade is guid."
Foster liked to talk to strangers and as the girl had not rebuffed him, he took her cloak, which looked very wet, from the rack.
"Perhaps I'd better shake this in the corridor and then we can hang it up," he said.
She allowed him to do so and the old man remarked:
"Guid gear's worth the saving, and I was thinking it would be nane the waur o' a bit shake, but if ye had leeved to my age among the mosses, ye'd no' find yereself sae soople."
"Any kind of gear's worth taking care of."
"That's true," agreed the other. "A verra praise-worthy sentiment, if ye practice it. But I wouldna' say ye were a Scot."