“There’s a lot o’ fancy wee pouches that’ll no’ haud mair nor a pawn-ticket aboot a Gleska man’s claes, but in the country they dae wi’ less and dig them deep.
“Sae faur as I can see, the pouch is a new-fashioned thing a’thegither. Look at them auld chaps ye see in pictures wi’ the galvanised or black-leaded airn suits on; if yin o’ them wanted a pouch he wad need to cut it himsel’ wi’ a sardine-opener, and then he wad peel a’ his knuckles feelin’ for his hankey or the price o’ a pint. I’m gled I wisna gaun aboot when them galvanised airn suits was the go; it must hae been awfu’ sair on the nails scratchin’ yersel’. Yer claes were made then in a biler-works. When ye went for the fit-on, the cutter bashed in the slack bits at the back wi’ a hammer and made it easier for ye under the oxter wi’ a cauld chisel.
“‘I want it higher at the neck,’ says you.
“‘Right!’ says he, quite game, and bangs in twa or three extra rivets. And your wife, if ye had yin, had to gie your suits a polish up every Friday when she was daein’ the kitchen grate.
“It was the same when the Hielan’s was the wye ye read aboot in books, and every Hielan’-man wore the kilts.
“There was nae pocket in a pair o’ kilts.
“I daursay that was because the Hielan’man never had onything worth while to put in a pocket if he had yin. He hung his snuff-mull and his knife and fork ootside his claes, and kept his skean-dhu in his stockin’. . .
“It’s a proof that weemen’s no’ richt ceevilised yet that they can be daein’, like the men I’m speakin’ aboot, withoot ony pooches. Jinnet tells me there’s nae pooch in a woman’s frock nooadays, because it wad spoil her sate on the bicycle. That’s the wye ye see weemen gaun aboot wi’ their purses in their haunds, and their bawbees for the skoosh car inside their glove, and their bonny wee watches that never gang because they’re never rowed up, hinging just ony place they’ll hook on to ootside their claes.
“I was yince gaun doon to Whiteinch on a Clutha to see a kizzen o’ the wife’s, and Jinnet was wi’ me. Me bein’ caury-haunded, I got aff by mistake at Govan on the wrang side o’ the river, when Jinnet was crackin’ awa’ like a pen-gun wi’ some auld wife at the sherp end o’ the boat, and she didna see me.
“‘Oh! Erchie!’ she says when she cam’ hame, ‘the time I’ve put in! I thocht ye wis drooned.’