A country laird on one occasion sent his gardener, John by name, to his cellar to bottle a barrel of whisky, and cautioned him at the same time to be sure and drink one whole glass of the liquor before starting to the work, or else the fumes might go to his head and seriously affect him. John was a careful man, generally speaking, so took extra precautions, though these were not attended with satisfactory results. Entering the cellar the laird was astonished to find his trusted retainer staggering about stupidly in the place.
“Ah, John, John,” exclaimed the laird, “you have not acted on my advice, I fear, and taken a dram before starting.”
“Dram be hang’d!” blurted out John. “It’s no a bit o’ use. I hae ta’en nearly a dizzen o’ them, an’ I’m gettin’ aye the langer the waur.”
A Forfarshire agriculturist, somewhat given to the dram, coming home one evening fully “three sheets to the wind,” took a seat by the fire, and, what with the heat and the fumes of the whisky he had imbibed, he soon became sick, and possessed of an irresistible desire to turn himself inside out. At his feet sat a “coal baikie,” which for the nonce was occupied by a brood of young ducklings that had been deserted by their foster mother, and for the sake of preservation had been brought into the kitchen and placed thus near the fire. Into this utensil our hero deposited the cause of his internal derangement. And his good wife appearing on the scene, observing but unobserved, a minute or two later, she found her husband peering critically down into the “baikie,” and muttering to himself—
“Eh! megstie me. It surely canna be possible. I mind weel eneuch o’ eating that cheese, an’ (hic) thae biscuits, an’ the beef. An’ I mind perfectly weel o’ suppin’ thae (hic) kail, an’ the barley amon’ them; but, in the name o’ a’ that’s wonderfu’, whaur in a’ the world did I get (hic) thae young deucks!”
He learned next morning, doubtless, on the deafest side of his head.
Even so stern an institution as total abstinence (?) has its humorous side:—
An old “wifie,” who had a weakness for whisky, had been prevailed upon to take the pledge.
Shortly afterwards she called upon a rather “drouthie neebor,” who was not aware of her visitor’s reformation.
The bottle was at once, as usual, produced, and the recent convert to total abstinence was sorely tempted.