ant neen o' them here."

"Tut, Bawbie, 'oman," says Sandy, "you're juist haiverin' straucht
forrit. It's no' flute band triangles I mean ava. It's the anes you
see in books--a' shapes an' sizes, ye know. Bandy learned a' aboot
them when he was at the sea. Sailors learn aboot them for measurin'
hoo far onywey is frae ony ither wey, d'ye know, d'ye see? Bandy tells
me that gomitry--that's what they ca' the book fu' o' triangles--is a
grand thing for learnin' you to speak; an' he offered to gi'e me a
lesson or twa."

"That'll be whaur Bandy gets a' his gab," says I. "I think, Sandy," I
says, says I, "that you've mair need to learn something to garr you
haud your tongue. You've nae need for learnin' to speak, weel-a-wat,
excep' it be to speak sense; an' I dinna suppose gomitry 'ill do you
ony guid that wey. It's made but a puir job o' Bandy Wobster, at
onyrate."

"That's a' you ken, Bawbie," says Sandy. "There's mair in Bandy than
the spune pets in; mind I'm tellin' you. He was tellin's aboot some o'
the exyems in gomitry lest nicht, an', I'll swag, he garred Cocky
Baxter, the auld dominie, chowl his chafts."

"Exyems!" says I. "Is that the same as exy-oey we used to play at on
oor sklates at the skule?"

"No, no, no, no, no," says Sandy. "What are you haiverin' aboot,
Bawbie? It's a different kind o' thing a'thegither. The first exyem
is that onything that's equal to the same thing as ony ither thing, is
equal to the thing that's equal to the thing to which the ither thing's
equal, d'ye know, d'ye see?"

"By faigs, Sandy," says I, "that's waur than exy-oey yet. What was't
you said?"

"It's as plain as twice-twa's fower, Bawbie, if you juist watch," says
Sandy. "If ae thing is equal till anither thing, an' the ither thing's
equal to some ither thing that's equal to the thing that the first
thing's equal till, then you can easy see that the ae thing 'ill be
equal to the ither, as weel as to the ither thing that they're baith
equal till."

I thocht Sandy was raley gettin' akinda lichtwecht, d'ye ken, for I cud
nether mak' heid nor tail o' his confused blethers.

"Keep me, Bawbie, do you no' see through't?" he says, glowerin' at me
wi' a queer-like look in his e'e. "Gie's three bawbees! Look now;
there's thae three bawbees. Weel than, here's twa here, an' there's
ane there. Noo, this ane here is equal to that ane there, an' this
ither ane here is equal to that ane there too; so that, when they'r