old body's like to be awake. You can always get at me there,
for it's easy to slip into her back kitchen without anybody in
the village seeing you....Yes, I'll do that, and you'll come and
report developments to me. And now I'm for a bite and a pipe.
It's hungry work travelling the country in the small hours."

"I'm going to introjuice ye to the rest o' us," said Dougal.
"Here, men!" he called, and four figures rose from the side
of the fire. As Dickson munched a sandwich he passed in review
the whole company of the Gorbals Die-Hards, for the pickets were also
brought in, two others taking their places. There was Thomas Yownie,
the Chief of Staff, with a wrist wound up in the handkerchief which
he had borrowed from his neck. There was a burly lad who wore
trousers much too large for him, and who was known as Peer Pairson,
a contraction presumably for Peter Paterson. After him came a lean
tall boy who answered to the name of Napoleon. There was a midget of
a child, desperately sooty in the face either from battle or from
fire-tending, who was presented as Wee Jaikie. Last came the picket
who had held his pole at Dickson's chest, a sandy-haired warrior with
a snub nose and the mouth and jaw of a pug-dog. He was Old Bill, or,
in Dougal's parlance, "Auld Bull."

The Chieftain viewed his scarred following with a grim content.
"That's a tough lot for ye, Mr. McCunn. Used a' their days wi'
sleepin' in coal-rees and dunnies and dodgin' the polis. Ye'll no
beat the Gorbals Die-Hards."

"You're right, Dougal," said Dickson. "There's just the six of you.
If there were a dozen, I think this country would be needing some
new kind of a government."