“‘Och!’ says she, ‘is that a’? Patent’s no’ in the game.’
“‘Onything’s in the game,’ says I to her, ‘that’s chaper nor heeling and soling.’
“It’s bad enough,” he went on, “to be hurtin’ yer knees wi’ new breeks, and haein’ the folk lookin’ at ye, but it’s a mercy for you and me we’re no’ weemen. You and me buys a hat, and as lang’s the rim and the rest o’t stick thegither, it’s no’ that faur oot the fashion: we need to hide oorsel’s. The only thing I see changes in is collars, and whether it’s the lying-doon kind or the double-breisted chats, they hack yer neck like onything. There’s changes in ties, but gie me plain black.
“Noo, Jinnet has to hae the shape o’ her hat shifted every month as regular’s a penny diary. If it’s flet in June, it’s cockin’ up in July; and if the bash is on the left side in August, it has to be on the right side in September.
“Och! but there’s no’ muckle wrang wi’ Jinnet for a’ that; she wanted to buy me a gold watch-chain last Fair.
“‘A gold watch-chain’s a nice, snod, bien-lookin’ thing aboot a man,’ she says, ‘and it’s gey usefu’.’
“No, nor usefu’,’ says I; ‘a watch-chain looks fine on a man, but it’s his gallowses dae the serious wark.’”
“Still, Erchie,” I said, “our sex can’t escape criticism for its eccentricities of costume either. Just fancy our pockets, for instance!”
“Ye’re right, there,” Erchie agreed; “hae I no’ fifteen pouches mysel’ when I hae my topcoat on? If I put a tramway ticket into yin’ o’ them I wadna be able to fin’ oot which o’ them it was in for an’oor or twa.
“Pockets is a rale divert. Ye canna dae with-oot nine or ten in Gleska if ye try yer best. In the country it’s different. Doon aboot Yoker, and Gargunnock, and Deid Slow and them places, a’ a man needs in the wye o’ pouches is twa trooser yins—yin for each haund when he’s leanin’ against a byre-door wonderin’ whit job he’ll start the morn.