his gusty voice. 'I was expectin' ye, but Dod! man ye're late!'

He extricated from his trousers pocket an ancient silver watch,
and regarded it with disfavour. 'The dashed thing has stoppit.
What do ye make the time, Mr Brand?'

He proceeded to prise open the lid of his watch with the knife he
had used to cut his tobacco, and, as he examined the works, he
turned the back of the case towards me. On the inside I saw pasted
Mary Lamington's purple-and-white wafer.

I held my watch so that he could see the same token. His keen
eyes, raised for a second, noted it, and he shut his own with a snap
and returned it to his pocket. His manner lost its wariness and
became almost genial.

'Ye've come up to see Glasgow, Mr Brand? Well, it's a steerin'
bit, and there's honest folk bides in it, and some not so honest.
They tell me ye're from South Africa. That's a long gait away, but I
ken something aboot South Africa, for I had a cousin's son oot
there for his lungs. He was in a shop in Main Street, Bloomfountain.
They called him Peter Dobson. Ye would maybe mind of him.'

Then he discoursed of the Clyde. He was an incomer, he told me,
from the Borders, his native place being the town of Galashiels, or,
as he called it, 'Gawly'. 'I began as a powerloom tuner in Stavert's
mill. Then my father dee'd and I took up his trade of jiner. But it's
no world nowadays for the sma' independent business, so I cam to
the Clyde and learned a shipwright's job. I may say I've become a
leader in the trade, for though I'm no an official of the Union, and