My old friend has a great repugnance to donning new clothes. His wife Jinnet told me once she had always to let him get into a new suit, as it were, on the instalment system: the first Sunday he reluctantly put on the trousers; the second he ventured the trousers and waistcoat; and on the third he courageously went forth in the garb complete, after looking out at the close-mouth first to see that Duffy or any other ribald and critical acquaintance was not looking.

I saw a tell-tale crease down the front of the old man’s legs yesterday.

“New sartorial splendour, Erchie?” I said, and pinched him for luck.

He got very red.

“You’re awfu’ gleg in the een,” said he; “am I no’ daein’ my best to let on they’re an auld pair cleaned? Blame the wife for’t! there’s naethin’ o’ the la-di-da aboot easy-gaun Erchie. But weemen! claes is their hale concern since the day that Adam’s wife got the shape o’ a sark frae the deevil, and made if wi’ a remender o’ fig-leafs.

“There’s no much wrang wi’ Jinnet, but she’s far ower pernicketty aboot whit her and me puts on, and if she has naething else to brag aboot she’ll brag I hae aye the best-brushed buits in oor kirk. She took an awfu’ thraw yince at yin o’ the elders, for she thocht he bate me wi’ the polish o’ his buits, and she could hardly sleep ower the heid o’t till I tellt her they were patent.

“‘Och!’ says she, ‘is that a’? Patent’s no’ in the game.’

“‘Onything’s in the game,’ says I to her, ‘that’s chaper nor heeling and soling.’

“It’s bad enough,” he went on, “to be hurtin’ yer knees wi’ new breeks, and haein’ the folk lookin’ at ye, but it’s a mercy for you and me we’re no’ weemen. You and me buys a hat, and as lang’s the rim and the rest o’t stick thegither, it’s no’ that faur oot the fashion: we need to hide oorsel’s. The only thing I see changes in is collars, and whether it’s the lying-doon kind or the double-breisted chats, they hack yer neck like onything. There’s changes in ties, but gie me plain black.

“Noo, Jinnet has to hae the shape o’ her hat shifted every month as regular’s a penny diary. If it’s flet in June, it’s cockin’ up in July; and if the bash is on the left side in August, it has to be on the right side in September.

“Och! but there’s no’ muckle wrang wi’ Jinnet for a’ that; she wanted to buy me a gold watch-chain last Fair.

“‘A gold watch-chain’s a nice, snod, bien-lookin’ thing aboot a man,’ she says, ‘and it’s gey usefu’.’

“No, nor usefu’,’ says I; ‘a watch-chain looks fine on a man, but it’s his gallowses dae the serious wark.’”

“Still, Erchie,” I said, “our sex can’t escape criticism for its eccentricities of costume either. Just fancy our pockets, for instance!”

“Ye’re right, there,” Erchie agreed; “hae I no’ fifteen pouches mysel’ when I hae my topcoat on? If I put a tramway ticket into yin’ o’ them I wadna be able to fin’ oot which o’ them it was in for an’oor or twa.

“Pockets is a rale divert. Ye canna dae with-oot nine or ten in Gleska if ye try yer best. In the country it’s different. Doon aboot Yoker, and Gargunnock, and Deid Slow and them places, a’ a man needs in the wye o’ pouches is twa trooser yins—yin for each haund when he’s leanin’ against a byre-door wonderin’ whit job he’ll start the morn.

“There’s a lot o’ fancy wee pouches that’ll no’ haud mair nor a pawn-ticket aboot a Gleska man’s claes, but in the country they dae wi’ less and dig them deep.

“Sae faur as I can see, the pouch is a new-fashioned thing a’thegither. Look at them auld chaps ye see in pictures wi’ the galvanised or black-leaded airn suits on; if yin o’ them wanted a pouch he wad need to cut it himsel’ wi’ a sardine-opener, and then he wad peel a’ his knuckles feelin’ for his hankey or the price o’ a pint. I’m gled I wisna gaun aboot when them galvanised airn suits was the go; it must hae been awfu’ sair on the nails scratchin’ yersel’. Yer claes were made then in a biler-works. When ye went for the fit-on, the cutter bashed in the slack bits at the back wi’ a hammer and made it easier for ye under the oxter wi’ a cauld chisel.

“‘I want it higher at the neck,’ says you.

“‘Right!’ says he, quite game, and bangs in twa or three extra rivets. And your wife, if ye had yin, had to gie your suits a polish up every Friday when she was daein’ the kitchen grate.

“It was the same when the Hielan’s was the wye ye read aboot in books, and every Hielan’-man wore the kilts.

“There was nae pocket in a pair o’ kilts.

“I daursay that was because the Hielan’man never had onything worth while to put in a pocket if he had yin. He hung his snuff-mull and his knife and fork ootside his claes, and kept his skean-dhu in his stockin’. . .

“It’s a proof that weemen’s no’ richt ceevilised yet that they can be daein’, like the men I’m speakin’ aboot, withoot ony pooches. Jinnet tells me there’s nae pooch in a woman’s frock nooadays, because it wad spoil her sate on the bicycle. That’s the wye ye see weemen gaun aboot wi’ their purses in their haunds, and their bawbees for the skoosh car inside their glove, and their bonny wee watches that never gang because they’re never rowed up, hinging just ony place they’ll hook on to ootside their claes.

“I was yince gaun doon to Whiteinch on a Clutha to see a kizzen o’ the wife’s, and Jinnet was wi’ me. Me bein’ caury-haunded, I got aff by mistake at Govan on the wrang side o’ the river, when Jinnet was crackin’ awa’ like a pen-gun wi’ some auld wife at the sherp end o’ the boat, and she didna see me.

“‘Oh! Erchie!’ she says when she cam’ hame, ‘the time I’ve put in! I thocht ye wis drooned.’

“‘And ye hurried hame for the Prudential Insurance book, I suppose?’ says I.

“‘No,’ says she, ‘but I made up my mind to hae a pooch o’ my ain efter this, if I merrit again, to haud my ain Clutha fares, and no’ be lippenin’ to onybody.’”