"O, Alick Bowden," I says to mysel', says I; "I kent this would be the end o't some day! He's gane awa' dookin' an' gotten himsel' drooned. O, my puir man! I howp they'll get his body, or never anither bit o' fish will I eat! There's Mistress Mertin fand a galace button in a red-waur codlin's guts lest week; an' it's no' so very lang syne sin' Mistress Kenawee got fower bits o' skellie i' the crap o' a colomy. Puir Sandy! I winder hoo they'll do wi' the bural society bawbees?"
"Is Sandy deid, Bawbie?" says Nathan.
"Ay; I doot he's deid, Nathan, laddie," says I.
"An' will you lat me get a ride on the dickie at the bural, Bawbie?" says Nathan, clawin' his heid throo a hole in his glengairy.
"Haud your tongue, laddie," says I; "ye dinna ken what you're speakin' aboot."
I gaithered up the claes. There was nae mistakin' them. They were Sandy's! The breeks pooches were foo o' nails an' strings, an' as muckle ither rubbish as you wudda gotten in Peattie Broon's, the pigman's, back shop. There was a lot o' fiddle rozit i' the weyscot, an' a box o' queer-lookin' ointment ca'd auntie stuff. But what strack me first was that his seamit an' his drawers werena there. "Cud he gane in dookin' wi' them on?" thocht I to mysel'. I cudna see throo't ava.
I gaed awa' to the shop door juist to look oot, an' I sees Pottie Lawson, Bandy Wobster, an' twa-three mair at the tap o' the street lauchin' like ony thing. I throo the key i' the door in a blink, an' up the street I goes. Pottie was juist in the middle o' a great hallach o' a lauch, when I grippit him by the collar. He swallowed the rest o' his lauch, I can tell you.
"What hae ye dune till my man, ye nesty, clorty, ill-lookin', mischeevious footer?" I says, giein' him a shak' that garred him turn up the white o' his een.
"Tak' your hand off me, you ill-tongued bissam," saya he, "or I'll lay your feet fest for you."
"Will you?" says I; an' I gae him a shuve that kowpit him heels-ower-heid ower the tap o' Gairner Winton's ae-wheeled barrow, that was sittin' ahent him. When he got himsel' gaithered oot amon' the peycods an' cabbitch, he was genna be at me, but Dauvid Kenawee stappit forrit, an' says he, "Saira ye richt, ye gude-for-naething snipe 'at ye are. Lift a hand till her, an' I'll ca' the chafts o' ye by ither."