By faigs, lads, Sandy garred me winder gin this time. Ye never heard hoo he laid it into them, steekin' his nivs an' layin' aboot him wi' his airms.
"Echt thoosand pound!" he roars again. "That's seven shillin's the heid—man, woman, and bairn i' the toon o' Arbroath. What d'ye think o' that? But that's no' a'. There's the toon's midden, too; that's needin' a look intil."
"Hear, hear," put in Watty as uswal; an' Bandy added, "It has muckle need, as my nose can tell ye."
"What d'ye think o' a midden i' the very middle o' your toon?" Sandy gaed on. "I paws for an answer," he said in a gravedigger's kind o' a voice. He crossed his legs ower ane anither, an' put ane o' his hands in ablo the tails o' his coat; an', gettin' akinda aff his balance, he gaed spung up again' Bandy Wobster. There was a crunch an' a splash, an' there was the chairman's bowd legs stickin' up oot o' the boiler, an' his face lookin' throo atween his taes, wi' a pair o' een like a wild cat. He was up to the neck amon' the claes I had steepin' for the morn's washin'. The nesty footer that he was, I cudda dune I kenna what till him.
"Ye great, big, clorty, tarry beast," I roared in at the winda; "come oot amon' my claes this meenit, or I'll come in an' kin'le the fire, an' boil ye." Sandy bloo oot the can'le; an' by a' the how-d'ye-does ever was heard tell o', you niver heard the marrow o' yon. Stumpie Mertin roared "Order! Feyre!" at the pitch o' his voice; an' the chairman was yowlin', "For ony sake, gie's a grip o' some o' your hands till I get oot o' this draw-wall, or I'm a deid man."
I think he had gotten haud o' a shelf abune his heid, an' giein' himsel' a poo up; for there was a most terriple reeshel o' broken bottles, an' beef tins, an' roarin' an' swearin', you never heard the like.
"What i' the face o' the earth was ye doin' blawin' oot the can'le, Sandy?" said Dauvid Kenawee. "Hold on a meenit till I strik' a spunk, an' see wha's a' deid," he says; an' wi' that he strak' a match an' lichtit the can'le. Bandy had gotten himsel' akinda warsled oot o' the boiler, but Stumpie Mertin had tnakit his wid leg ower by the ankle, an' there he was hawpin' aboot, gaen bobbin' up an' doon like a rabbit's tail, roarin' "Murder!"
"I think we'll better lave ower the rest o' the meetin' till anither nicht," said Moses Certricht, "an' we can look into the toon's midden some ither time."
"Juist tak' a look roond aboot ye," says I, in at the winda, "an' ye'll see midden eneuch. Wha's genna clean up that mairter? I paws for a answer," says I, in a voice as like Sandy's bural-society wey o' speakin' as I cud manish. "Speak aboot pettin' Sandy Bowden at the tap o' the poll. He'll be mair use at the end o' the bissam shaft, I'm thinkin'."
"C'wey, you lads," says Bandy. "I'm soakin' dreepin' throo an' throo, an' it's time I was oot o' this."