A tramcar was passing. A wild thought ran through his brain.
"Dod," he said, "I declare I'll save that muckle by giein' up Sal—I'll risk it."
And he hailed the car and walked very slowly towards it when it stopped. The conductor waved to him to come on.
"Could ye no hae run, man, an' no wasted a' this time?" he said, when Cleaver's boy had at last got himself upon the platform.
"I was gettin' my twopence-worth," said James Annan, with dignity; "I am an inside passenger!" And he went through the glass door and sat beside Bailie Holden, who was going home to dinner and was already thinking of Bogie roll.
The Bailie and Cleaver's boy got out at the same place. They made their way to the same house. The Bailie let himself in by the front door. Cleaver's boy went equally unannounced to the back. But Cleaver's boy knew that he had pretty Janet of Inverness waiting for him, whereas the Bailie only had his wife. And in these circumstances most people would have preferred to enter by the back door with James Annan.
Janet of Inverness was standing by the kitchen-window polishing a brass preserving pan in which she could admire her dimpled chin, and the hair which, curling naturally, did not need the intervention of red-hot knitting needles to be beautiful.
Janet ran hastily to the door.
"Do you want to see the maister?"