she has nae
need to write to me!) Suddenly I heard my own name as I passed a bunch
o' women gossiping.

"What thocht ye o' Harry Lauder?" one of them asked another.

And the one she asked was no slow to say! "I think this o' Harry
Lauder, buddies!" she declared, vehemently. "I think it's a dirty
trick he's played on me, the wee deeil. I'm not sayin' it was
altogither his fault, though--he's not knowing he did it!"

"How was the way o' that, Kirsty Lamont?" asked another.

"I'm tellin' ye. Fan the lassies came in frae the mull last nicht they
flang their working things frae them as though they were mad.

"'Fat's all the stushie?' I asked them. They just leuch at me, and
said they were hurryin' so they could hear Harry Lauder sing. They
said he was the comic frae Glasga, and they asked me was I no gang wi'
them tae the Toon Ha' to hear his concert.

"'No,' I says. 'All the siller in the hoose maun gang for the rent,
and it's due on Setterday. Fat wad the neighbors be sayin' if they
saw Kirsty Lamont gang to a concert in a rent week--fashin' aboot
like that!'"

"But Phem--that's my eldest dochter, ye ken--she wad ha' me gang
alang. She bade me put on my bonnet and my dolman, and said she'd pay
for me, so's to leave the siller for the rent. So I said I'd gang,
since they were so keen like, and we set oot jist as John came hame
for his tea. I roort at him that he could jist steer for himself for a
nicht. And he asked why, and I said I was gang to hear Harry Lauder.

"'Damn Harry Lauder!" he answers, gey short. "Ye'll be sorry yet for
this nicht's work, Kirsty Lamont. Leavin' yer auld man tae mak' his
ain tea, and him workin' syne six o'clock o' the morn!'"

"I turn't at that, for John's a queer ane when he tak's it intil's
head, but the lassies poo'd me oot th' door and in twa-three meenits
we were at the ha'. Fat a crushin' a fechtin' the get in. The bobby at
the door saw me--savin' that we'd no ha' got in. But the bobby kens me
fine--I've bailed John oot twice, for a guinea ilka time, and they
recognize steady customers there like anywheres else!

"The concert was fine till that wee man Harry came oot in his kilt.
And then, losh, I startit to laugh till the watter ran doon my cheeks,
and the lassies was that mortified they wushed they had nae brocht me.
I'm no ane to laugh at a concert or a play, but that wee Harry made
ithers laugh beside me, so I was no the only ane to disgrace mysel'.

"It was eleven and af