e evening, I arrived at Glasgow by the Caledonian train from
Carlisle, and was met at Buchanan Street Station by my good friend Tom.

After supper we repaired to the streets to see the crowds that congregate
on _Hogmanhay_, to make acquaintance with the mysteries of
"first-footin'," and to join in ushering in the "guid new year." It was
a stirring time, for Scotchmen encounter their _Hogmanhay_ with ardent
_spirits_. They are as keen in their pleasures as in their work. Compare
for instance their country dances with ours. As Keats, in his letters
from Scotland says, "it is about the same as leisurely stirring a cup o'
tea and beating up a batter pudding." The public houses and bars were
driving a lively trade, but "Forbes Mackenzie" was in force, and come
eleven o'clock, though it were a hundred _Hogmanhays_, they all had to
close. We met some new-made friends of Tom's and joined in their
conviviality. I was the dark complexioned man of the party, and as a
"first-footer" in great request. We did not go home till morning, and
reached there a little hilarious ourselves, but it was our first
_Hogmanhay_ and may be forgiven.

Dear reader, did you ever lie in a _concealed bed_? It is a Scottish
device cunningly contrived to murder sleep. At least so Tom and I found
it. It was my fate to sleep, to lie I should say, in one for several
weeks. Its purpose is to economise space, and like Goldsmith's chest of
drawers, it is "contrived a double debt to pay," a sleeping room by
night, a sitting room by day.

Whilst Glasgow is a city of _flats_ its people are resourceful and
energetic. Keen and canny, they drive a close bargain but, scrupulous
and conscientious, fulfil it faithfully. Proud of their city and its
progress, its industries and manufactures, its civic importance, they are
a little disdainful perhaps, perhaps a little jealous, of their beautiful
elder sister, Edinburgh. Glasgow is the Belfast of Scotland!

Self-contained houses are the exception and are limited to the well-to-
do. The flat, in most cases, means a restricted number of apartments,
insufficient bedroom accommodation, and the _concealed bed_ is Glasgow's
way of solving the difficulty.

Tom and I did not take kindly to our hole in the wall, and soon found
other lodgings where space was not so circumscribed, and where we could
sleep in an open bed in an open room.

Our new quarters were a great success; a ground-floor flat with a fine
front