s two sons, and both in the
airmy, one in the Cameronians and one a prisoner in Germany. She was
telling me that she could not keep goin' any more, lacking the help of
the boys, though she had worked her fingers to the bone. "Surely it's a
crool job, Mr Amos," she says, "that the Goavernment should tak baith
my laddies, and I'll maybe never see them again, and let the Irish gang
free and tak the bread frae our mouth. At the gasworks across the road
they took on a hundred Irish last week, and every yin o' them as young
and well set up as you would ask to see. And my wee Davie, him that's
in Germany, had aye a weak chest, and Jimmy was troubled wi' a bowel
complaint. That's surely no justice!". ...'

He broke off and lit a match by drawing it across the seat of his
trousers. 'It's time I got the gas lichtit. There's some men coming
here at half-ten.'

As the gas squealed and flickered in the lighting, he sketched for me
the coming guests. 'There's Macnab and Niven, two o' my colleagues. And
there's Gilkison of the Boiler-fitters, and a lad Wilkie--he's got
consumption, and writes wee bits in the papers. And there's a queer
chap o' the name o' Tombs--they tell me he comes frae Cambridge, and is
a kind of a professor there--anyway he's more stuffed wi' havers than
an egg wi' meat. He telled me he was here to get at the heart o' the
workingman, and I said to him that he would hae to look a bit further
than the sleeve o' the workin'-man's jaicket. There's no muckle in his
head, poor soul. Then there'll be Tam Norie, him that edits our weekly
paper--_Justice for All_. Tam's a humorist and great on Robert Burns,
but he hasna the balance o' a dwinin' teetotum ... Ye'll understand, Mr
Brand, that I keep my mouth shut in such company, and don't express my
own views more than is absolutely necessary. I criticize whiles, and
that gives me a name of whunstane common-sense, but I never let my
tongue wag. The feck o' the lads comin' the night are not the real
workingman--they're just the froth on the pot, but it's the froth that
will be useful to you. Remember they've heard tell o' ye already, and
ye've some sort o' reputation to keep up.'

'Will Mr Abel Gresson be here?' I asked.

'No,' he said. 'Not yet. Him and me havena yet got to the point o'
payin' visits. But the men that come will be Gresson's friends and
they'll speak of ye to him. It's the best kind of introduction ye could
seek.'

The knocker sounded, and Mr Amos haste