Erchie, My Droll Friend

VII CARNEGIE’S WEE LASSIE

Erchie sought me out on Saturday with a copy of that day’s ‘News’ containing a portrait of Carnegie’s little daughter Margaret.

“Man, isn’t she the rale wee divert?” said he, glowing. “That like her faither, and sae weel-put-on! She minds me terrible o’ oor wee Teenie when she was jist her age.”

“She has been born into an enviable state, Erchie,” I said.

“Oh, I’m no’ sae shair aboot that,” said Erchie.

“It’s a gey hard thing, whiles, bein’ a millionaire’s only wean. She canna hae mony wee lassies like hersel’ to play the peever wi’, or lift things oot o’ the stanks o’ Skibo Castle wi’ a bit o’ clye and a string. I’m shair it must be a hard job for the auld man, her paw, to provide diversions for the puir wee smout. And she’ll hae that mony things that she’ll no’ can say whit she wants next. I ken fine the wye it’ll be up yonder at Skibo.

“It’ll be, ‘Paw, I’m wantin’ something.’

“‘Whit is’t, my dawtie, and ye’ll get it to break?’ Mr Carnegie’ll say, and lift her on his knee, and let her play wi’ the works o’ his twa thoosand pound repeater watch.

“‘I dinna’ ken,’ says the wee lassie, ‘but I want it awfu’ fast.’

“‘Whit wad ye be sayin’ to an electric doll wi’ a phonograph inside it to mak’ it speak?’ asks Mr Carnegie.

“‘I’m tired o’ dolls,’ says the wee yin, ‘and, besides, I wad raither dae the speakin’ mysel’.’

“‘Ye’re a rale wee woman there, Maggie,’ says her paw.

“‘Weel, whit dae ye say to a wee totey motorcar a’ for your ain sel’, and jewelled in four-and-twenty holes?’ says he efter that, takin’ the hands o’ his watch frae her in case she micht swallow them.

“‘Oh! a motor-car,’ says the wee lassie. ‘No, I’m no carin’ for ony mair motor-cars; ‘I canna get takin’ them to my bed wi’ me.’

“‘Ye’re weel aff there,’ says he. ‘I’ve had the hale o’ the Pittsburg works to my bed wi’ me,’ he says. ‘They were in my heid a’ the time when I couldna sleep, and they were on my chest a’ the time when I was sleepin’?’

“‘Whit wye that, paw?’ says the wee lassie. “‘I was feart something wad gae wrang, and I wad lose a’ the tred, and be puir again.’

“‘But I thocht ye wanted to die puir, paw?’ says the wee lassie.

“‘Ay, but I never had ony notion o’ leevin’ puir,’ says Mr Carnegie as smert’s ye like, ‘and that mak’s a’ the difference. If ye’re, no’ for anither motor carriage, wad ye no’ tak’ a new watch?’

“‘No, paw,’ says the wee lassie, ‘I’m no’ for anither watch. The only thing a watch tells ye is when it’s time to gang to bed, and then I’m no wantin’ to gang onywye. Whit I wad like wad be ane o’ thae watches that has haunds that dinna move when ye’re haein’ awfu’ fine fun.’

“‘Oh, ay!’ says her paw at that; ‘that’s the kind we’re a’ wantin’, but they’re no’ makin’ them, and I’m no’ shair that I wad hae muckle use for yin nooadays eyen if they were. If ye’ll no’ hae a watch, will ye hae a yacht, or a brass band, or a fleein’-machine, or a piebald pony?’

“‘I wad raither mak’ mud-pies,’ says the wee innocent.

“‘Mud-pies!’ cries her faither in horror, lookin’ roond to see that naebody heard her. ‘Wheesh! Maggie, it wadna look nice to see the like o’ you makin’ mud-pies. Ye havena the claes for’t. Beside, I’m tellt they’re no’ the go nooadays at a’.

“‘Weel,’ says she at that, ‘I think I’ll hae a hairy-heided lion.’

“‘Hairy-heided lion. Right!’ says Mr Carnegie. ‘Ye’ll get that, my wee lassie,” and cries doon the turret stair to the kitchen for his No. 9 secretary.

“The No. 9 secretary comes up in his shirt sleeves, chewin’ blot-sheet and dichting the ink aff his elbows.

“‘Whit are ye thrang at the noo?’ asks Mr Carnegie as nice as onything to him, though he’s only a kind o’ a workin’ man.

“‘Sendin’ aff the week’s orders for new kirk organs,’ says the No. 9 secretary, ‘and it’ll tak’ us till Wednesday.’

“‘Where’s a’ the rest o’ my secretaries?’ asks Mr Carnegie.

“‘Half o’ them’s makin’ oot cheques for new leebraries up and doon the country, and the ither halfs oot in the back-coort burning letters frae weedows wi’ nineteen weans, nane o’ them daein’ for themsel’s, and frae men that were dacent and steady a’ their days, but had awfu’ bad luck.’

“‘If it gangs on like this we’ll hae to put ye on the night-shift,’ says Mr Carnegie. ‘It’s comin’ to’t when I hae to write my ain letters. I’ll be expected to write my ain books next. But I’ll no’ dae onything o’ the kind. Jist you telegraph to India, or Africa, or Japan, or wherever the hairy-heided lions comes frae, and tell them to send wee Maggie ane o’ the very best at 50 per cent aff for cash.’

“Early ae mornin’ some weeks efter that, when the steam-hooter for wakenin’ the secretaries starts howlin’ at five o’clock, Mr Carnegie comes doon stair and sees the hairy-heided lion in a crate bein’ pit aff a lorry. He has it wheeled into the wee lassie when she’s at her breakfast.

“‘Let it oot,’ she says; ‘I want to play wi’t.’

“‘Ye wee fuiter!’ he says, lauchin’ like onything, ‘ye canna get playin’ wi’t oot o’ the cage, but ye’ll can get feedin’t wi’ sultana-cake.’

“But that disna suit wee Maggie, and she jist tells him to send it awa’ to the Bronx Zoo in New York.

“‘Bronx Zoo. Right!’ says her paw, and cries on his No. 22 secretary to send it aff wi’ the parcel post at yince.

“‘That minds me,’ he says, ‘there’s a cryin’ heed for hairy-heided lions all over Europe and the United States. The moral and educative influence o’ the common or bald-heided lion is of no account. Noo that maist o’ the kirks has twa organs apiece, and there’s a leebrary in every clachan in the country, I must think o’ some ither wye o’ gettin’ rid o’ this cursed wealth. It was rale’ cute o’ you, Maggie, to think o’t; I’ll pay half the price o’ a hairy-heided lion for every toon in the country wi’ a population o’ over five hundred that can mak’ up the ither half by public subscription.’

“And then the wee lassie says she canna tak’ her parridge.

“‘Whit for no’?’ he asks her, anxious-like. ‘Are they no guid?’

“‘Oh, they’re maybe guid enough,’ she says, ‘but I wad raither hae toffie.’

“‘Toffie. Right!’ says her paw, and orders up the chef to mak’ toffie in a hurry.

“‘Whit’s he gaun to mak’ it wi’?’ asks the wee yin.

“‘Oh, jist in the ordinar’ wye – wi’ butter and sugar,’ says her paw.

“‘That’s jist common toffie,’ says the wee lassie; ‘I want some ither kind.’

“‘As shair’s death, Maggie,’ he says, ‘there’s only the ae wye o’ makin’ toffie.’

“‘Then whit’s the use o’ haein’ a millionaire for a paw?’ she asks.

“‘True for you,’ he says, and thinks hard. ‘I could mak’ the chef put in champed rubies or a di’mond or twa grated doon.’

“‘Wad it mak’ the toffie taste ony better?’ asks the wee cratur’.

“‘No’ a bit better,’ he says. ‘It wadna taste sae guid as the ordinary toffie, but it wad be nice and dear.’

“‘Then I’ll jist hae to hae the plain, chape toffie,’ says wee Maggie.

“‘That’s jist whit I hae to hae mysel’ wi’ a great mony things,’ says her paw. ‘Being a millionaire’s nice enough some wyes, but there’s a wheen things money canna buy, and paupers wi’ three or four thoosand paltry, pounds a-year is able to get jist as guid toffie and ither things as I can. I canna even dress mysel’ different frae ither folks, for it wad look rideeculous to see me gaun aboot wi’ gold cloth waistcoats and a hat wi’ strings o’ pearls on it, so a’ I can dae is to get my nickerbocker suits made wi’ an extra big check. I hae the pattern that big noo there’s only a check-and-a-half to the suit; but if it wasna for the honour o’t I wad just as soon be wearin’ Harris tweed.’”

“Upon my word, Erchie,” I said, “you make me sorry for our philanthropic friend, and particularly for his little girl.”

“Oh, there’s no occasion!” protested Erchie. “There’s no condeetion in life that hasna its compensations, and even Mr Carnegie’s wee lassie has them. I hae nae doot the best fun her and her paw gets is when they’re playin’ at bein’ puir. The auld man’ll nae doot whiles hide his pocket-money in the press, and sit doon readin’ his newspaper, wi’ his feet on the chimneypiece, and she’ll come in and ask for a bawbee.

“‘I declare to ye I havena a farden, Maggie,’ he’ll say; ‘but I’ll gie ye a penny on Setturday when I get my pay.’

“‘I dinna believe ye,’ she’ll say.

“‘Then ye can ripe me,’ says her paw, and the wee tot’ll feel in a’ his pooches, and find half a sovereign in his waistcoat. They’ll let on it’s jist a bawbee (the wee thing never saw a rale bawbee in her life, I’ll warrant), and he’ll wonner whit wye he forgot aboot it, and tell her to keep it and buy jujubes wi’t, and she’ll be awa’ like a whitteruck and come back in a while wi’ her face a’ sticky for a kiss, jist like rale.

“Fine I ken the wee smouts; it was that wye wi’ oor ain Teenie.

“Other whiles she’ll hae a wee tin bank wi’ a bee-skep on’t, and she’ll hae’t fu’ o’ sovereigns her faither’s veesitors slip’t in her haund when they were gaun awa’, and she’ll put it on the mantelpiece and gang out. Then her paw’ll get up lauchin’ like onything to himsel’, and tak’ doon the wee bank and rattle awa’ at it, lettin’ on he’s robbin’t for a schooner o’ beer, and at that she’ll come rinnin’ in and catch him at it, and they’ll hae great fun wi’ that game. I have nae doot her faither and mither get mony a laugh at her playin’ at wee washin’s, too, and lettin’ on she’s fair trauchled aff the face o’ the earth wi’ a family o’ nine dolls, an’ three o’ them doon wi’ the hoopin’-cough. Oh! they’re no’ that bad aff for fine fun even in Skibo Castle.”

VIII A SON OF THE CITY

My old friend came daundering down the street with what might have been a bag of cherries, if cherries were in season, and what I surmised were really the twopenny pies with which Jinnet and he sometimes made the Saturday evenings festive. When we met he displayed a blue hyacinth in a flower-pot.

“Saw’t in a fruiterer’s window,” said he, “and took the notion. Ninepence; dod! I dinna ken hoo they mak’ them for the money. I thocht it wad please the wife, and min’ her o’ Dunoon and the Lairgs and a’ thae places that’s doon the watter in the summer-time.

“Ye may say whit ye like, I’m shair they shut up a’ thae coast toons when us bonny wee Gleska buddies is no’ comin’ doon wi’ oor tin boxes, and cheerin’ them up wi’ a clog-wallop on the quay.

“It’s a fine thing a flooer; no’ dear to buy at the start, and chaper to keep than a canary. It’s Nature – the Rale Oreeginal. Ninepence! And the smell o’t! Jist a fair phenomena!”

“A sign of spring, Erchie,” I said; “thank heaven! the primrose is in the wood, and the buds bursting on the hedge in the country, though you and I are not there to see it.”

“I daursay,” said he, “I’ll hae to mak’ a perusal doon the length o’ Yoker on the skoosh car when the floods is ower. I’m that used to them noo, as shair’s death I canna get my naitural sleep on dry nichts unless Jinnet gangs oot to the back and throws chuckies at the window, lettin’ on it’s rain and hailstanes. When I hear the gravel on the window I cod mysel’ it’s the genuine auld Caledonian climate, say my wee ‘Noo I lay me,’ and gang to sleep as balmy as a nicht polisman.

“There’s a great cry the noo aboot folks comin’ frae the country and croodin’ into the toons and livin’ in slums and degenerating the bone and muscle o’ Britain wi’ eatin’ kippered herrin’ and ice-cream. Thoosands o’ them’s gaun aboot Gleska daein’ their bit turns the best way they can, and no’ kennin’, puir craturs! there’s a Commission sittin’ on them as hard’s it can.

“‘Whit’s wanted,’ says the Inspectors o’ Poor, ‘is to hustle them aboot frae place to place till the soles o’ their feet gets red-hot wi’ the speed they’re gaun at; then gie them a bar o’ carbolic soap and a keg o’ Keatin’s poother, and put them on the first train for Edinburgh.

“‘Tear doon the rookeries,’ says anither man, ‘and pit up rooms and kitchens wi’ wally jawboxes and tiled closes at a rent o’ eighteenpence a-week when ye get it.’

“‘That’s a’ very fine,’ says the economists, ‘but if ye let guid wally jawbox hooses at ten shillin’s a-year less than the auld-established and justly-popular slum hoose, will’t no’ tempt mair puir folk frae the country into Gleska and conjest the Gorbals worse than ever?’ The puir economists thinks the folks oot aboot Skye and Kamerhash-injoo’s waitin’ for telegrams tellin’ them the single apairtment hoose in Lyon Street, Garscube Road,’s doon ten shillin’s a-year, afore they pack their carpet-bags and start on the Clansman for the Broomielaw. But they’re no’. They, divna ken onything aboot the rent o’ hooses in Gleska, and they’re no’ carin’, for maybe they’ll no’ pay’t ony-wye. They jist come awa’ to Gleska when the wife tells them, and Hughie’s auld enough for a polisman.

“Slums! wha wants to abolish slums? It’s no’-the like o’ me nor Duffy. If there werena folk leevin’ in slums I couldna buy chape shirts, and the celebrated Stand Fast Craigroyston serge breeks at 2s. 11d. the pair, bespoke, guaranteed, shrunk, and wan hip-pocket.

“When they’re proposin’ the toast o’ the ‘Army, Navy, and Reserve Forces,’ they ought to add the Force that live in Slums. They’re the men and women that’s aye ready to sweat for their country – when their money’s done. A man that wants the chapest kind o’ chape labour kens he’ll aye can get it in the slums; if it wasna for that, my Stand Fast Craigroyston breeks wad maybe cost 7s. 6d., and some of the elders in the kirk I’m beadle for wad hae to smoke tuppenny cigars instead o’ sixpenny yins.

“The slums’ll no’ touch ye if ye don’t gang near them.

“Whit a lot o’ folk want to dae’s to run the skoosh cars away oot into the country whaur the clegs and the midges and the nae gas is, and coup them oot at Deid Slow on the Clyde, and leave them there wander’t. Hoo wad they like it themsel’s? The idea is that Duffy, when he’s done wi’ his last rake o’ coals,’ll mak’ the breenge for Deid Slow, and tak’ his tea and wash his face wi’ watter that hard it stots aff his face like a kahootchy ba’, and spend a joyous and invigoratin’ evenin’ sheuchin’ leeks and prunin’ cauliflooer-bushes in the front plot o’ his cottage home.

“I think I see him! He wad faur sooner pay twelve pounds rent in Grove Street, and hae the cheery lowe o’ the Mull o’ Kintyre Vaults forenent his paurlor window, than get his boots a’ glaur wi’ plantin’ syboes roond his cottage home at £6, 10s.

“The country’s a’ richt for folks that havena their health and dinna want to wear a collar to their wark, and Deid Slow and places like that may be fine for gaun to if ye want to get ower the dregs o’ the measles, but they’re nae places for ony man that loves his fellow-men.

“And still there’s mony a phenomena! I ken a man that says he wad stay in the country a’ the year roond if he hadna to bide in Gleska and keep his eye on ither men in the same tred’s himsel’, to see they’re no’ risin’ early in the mornin’ and gettin’ the better o’ him.

“It wadna suit Easy-gaun Erchie. Fine I ken whit the country is; did I no’ leeve a hale winter aboot Dairy when I was a halflin’?

“It’s maybe a’ richt in summer, when you and me gangs oot on an excursion, and cheers them up wi’ oor melodeon wi’ bell accompaniment; but the puir sowls havena much diversion at the time o’ year the V-shaped depression’s deckin’ on Ben Nevis, and the weather prophets in the evening papers is promisin’ a welcome change o’ weather every Setturday. All ye can dae when your wark’s done and ye’ve ta’en your tea’s to put on a pair o’ top-boots and a waterproof, and gang oot in the dark. There’s no’ even a close to coort in, and if ye want to walk alang a country road at nicht thinkin’ hoo much money ye hae in the bank, ye must be gey smert no’ to fa’ into a ditch. Stars? Wha wants to bother glowerin’ at stars? There’s never ony change in the programme wi’ them in the country. If I want stars I gang to the Britannia.

“Na, na, Gleska’s the place, and it’s nae wonder a’ the country-folks is croodin’ into’t as fast’s they can get their cottage homes sublet.

“This is the place for intellect and the big pennyworth of skim-milk.

“I declare I’m that ta’en wi’ Gleska I get up sometimes afore the fire’s lichted to look oot at the window and see if it’s still to the fore.

“Fifteen, public-hooses within forty yairds o’ the close-mooth; a guttapercha works at the tap o’ the street, and twa cab-stances at the foot. My mornin’ ‘oors are made merry wi’ the de-lightfu’ strains o’ factory hooters and the sound o’ the dust-cart man kickin’ his horse like ony-thing whaur it’ll dae maist guid.

“I can get onywhere I want to gang on the skoosh cars for a bawbee or a penny, but the only place I hae to gang to generally is my wark, and I wad jist as soon walk it, for I’m no in ony hurry.

“When the rain’s blashin’ doon at nicht on the puir miserable craturs workin’ at their front plots in Deid Slow, or trippin’ ower hens that’ll no’ lay ony eggs, I can be improvin’ my mind wi’ Duffy at the Mull o’ Kintyre Vaults, or daunderin’ alang the Coocaddens wi’ my hand tight on. my watch-pocket, lookin’ at the shop windows and jinkin’ the members o’ the Sons of Toil Social Club (Limited), as they tak’ the breadth o’ the pavement.

“Gleska! Some day when I’m in the key for’t I’ll mak’ a song aboot her. Here the triumphs o’ civilisation meet ye at the stair-fit, and three bawbee mornin’ rolls can be had efter six o’clock at nicht for a penny.

“There’s libraries scattered a’ ower the place; I ken, for I’ve seen them often, and the brass plate at the door tellin’ ye whit they are.

“Art’s a’ the go in Gleska, too; there’s something aboot it every ither nicht in the papers, when Lord Somebody-or-ither’s no’ divorcin’ his wife, and takin’ up the space; and I hear there’s hunders o’ pictures oot in yon place at Kelvin-grove.

“Theatres, concerts, balls, swarees, lectures – ony mortal thing ye like that’ll keep ye oot o’ your bed, ye’ll get in Gleska if ye have the money to pay for’t.”

“It’s true, Erchie.”

“Whit’s true?” said the old man, wrapping the paper more carefully round his flower-pot. “Man, I’m only coddin’. Toon or country, it doesna muckle maitter if, like me, ye stay in yer ain hoose. I don’t stay in Gleska; not me! it’s only the place I mak’ my money in; I stay wi’ Jinnet.”

IX ERCHIE ON THE KING’S CRUISE

I deliberately sought out Erchie one day in order to elicit his views upon the Royal progress through the Western Isles, and found him full of the subject, with the happiest disposition to eloquence thereon.