“What! beadling?” I asked him.
“Oh! there’s naethin’ wrang wi’ beadlin’,” said he; “there’s nae ups and doons there except to put the books on the pulpit desk, and they canna put ye aff the job if ye’re no jist a fair wreck. I’m a’ richt for the beadlin’ as lang’s I keep my health and hae Jinnet to button my collar, and it’s generally allo’ed—though maybe I shouldna say’t mysel’—that I’m the kind o’ don at it roond aboot Gleska. I michtna be, if I wasna gey carefu’. Efter waitin’ at a Setterday nicht spree, I aye tak’ care to gie the bell an extra fancy ca’ or twa on the Sunday mornin’ jist to save clash and mak’ them ken Mac-Pherson’s there himsel’, and no’ some puir pick-up that never ca’d the handle o’ a kirk bell in his life afore.
“There’s no’ a man gangs to oor kirk wi’ better brushed boots than mysel’, as Jinnet’ll tell ye, and if I hae ae gift mair nor anither it’s discretioncy. A beadle that’s a waiter has to gae through life like the puir troot they caught in the Clyde the other day—wi’ his mooth shut, and he’s worse aff because he hasna ony gills—at least no’ the kind ye pronounce that way.
“Beadlin’s an art, jist like pentin’ photograph pictures, or playin’ the drum, and if it’s no’ in ye, naethin’ ‘ll put it there. I whiles see wee skina-malink craturs dottin’ up the passages in U.F. kirks carryin’ the books as if they were M.C.‘s at a dancin’-schule ball gaun to tack up the programme in front o’ the band; they lack thon rale releegious glide; they havena the feet for’t.
“Waitin’ is whit I mean; it’s fair done!
“When I began the tred forty-five year syne in the auld Saracen Heid Inn, a waiter was looked up to, and was well kent by the best folk in the toon, wha’ aye ca’d him by his first name when they wanted the pletform box o’ cigaurs handed doon instead o’ the Non Plus Ultras.
“Nooadays they stick a wally door-knob wi’ a number on’t in the lapelle o’ his coat, and it’s Hey, No. 9, you wi’ the flet feet, dae ye ca’ this ham?’
“As if ye hadna been dacently christened and brocht up an honest faimily!
“In the auld days they didna drag a halflin callan’ in frae Stra’ven, cut his nails wi’ a hatchet, wash his face, put a dickie and a hired suit on him, and gie him the heave into a banquet-room, whaur he disna ken the difference between a finger-bowl and a box o’ fuzuvian lichts.
“I was speakin’ aboot that the ither nicht to Duffy, the coalman, and he says, ‘Whit’s the odds, MacPherson? Wha’ the bleezes couldna’ sling roon’ blue-mange at the richt time if he had the time-table, or the menu, or whitever ye ca’t, to keep him richt?’