It was in Kirremuir, and there'd been a braw concert the nicht before. I was on my way to the post office, thinking there'd be maybe a bit letter from the wife—she wrote to me, sometimes, then, when I was frae hame, oor courtin' days not being so far behind us as they are noo. (Ah, she travels wi' me always the noo, ye ken, sae she has nae need to write to me!) Suddenly I heard my own name as I passed a bunch o' women gossiping.
"What thocht ye o' Harry Lauder?" one of them asked another.
And the one she asked was no slow to say! "I think this o' Harry Lauder, buddies!" she declared, vehemently. "I think it's a dirty trick he's played on me, the wee deeil. I'm not sayin' it was altogither his fault, though—he's not knowing he did it!"
"How was the way o' that, Kirsty Lamont?" asked another.
"I'm tellin' ye. Fan the lassies came in frae the mull last nicht they flang their working things frae them as though they were mad.
"'Fat's all the stushie?' I asked them. They just leuch at me, and said they were hurryin' so they could hear Harry Lauder sing. They said he was the comic frae Glasga, and they asked me was I no gang wi' them tae the Toon Ha' to hear his concert.
"'No,' I says. 'All the siller in the hoose maun gang for the rent, and it's due on Setterday. Fat wad the neighbors be sayin' if they saw Kirsty Lamont gang to a concert in a rent week—fashin' aboot like that!'"
"But Phem—that's my eldest dochter, ye ken—she wad ha' me gang alang. She bade me put on my bonnet and my dolman, and said she'd pay for me, so's to leave the siller for the rent. So I said I'd gang, since they were so keen like, and we set oot jist as John came hame for his tea. I roort at him that he could jist steer for himself for a nicht. And he asked why, and I said I was gang to hear Harry Lauder.
"'Damn Harry Lauder!" he answers, gey short. "Ye'll be sorry yet for this nicht's work, Kirsty Lamont. Leavin' yer auld man tae mak' his ain tea, and him workin' syne six o'clock o' the morn!'"
"I turn't at that, for John's a queer ane when he tak's it intil's head, but the lassies poo'd me oot th' door and in twa-three meenits we were at the ha'. Fat a crushin' a fechtin' the get in. The bobby at the door saw me—savin' that we'd no ha' got in. But the bobby kens me fine—I've bailed John oot twice, for a guinea ilka time, and they recognize steady customers there like anywheres else!