"Whan the time's guid for ither fowk, it's
but sae sae for you and me. I haena had a watch come in for a haill ook
(week)."
"Hoo de ye accoont for that, Mr Sim?" asked a shoemaker who stood near
without belonging to the group.
"It's the ile, man, the ile. Half the mischeef o' watches is the ile."
"But I don't see," said the doctor, "how that can be, Sim."
"Weel, ye see, sir," answered Wattie--and the words seemed somehow to
have come tumbling silently down over the ridge of his nose, before he
caught them in his mouth and articulated them--"ye see, sir, watches is
delicat things. They're not to be traitet like fowk's insides wi'
onything 'at comes first. Gin I cud jist get the middle half-pint oot
o' the hert o' a hogsheid o' sperm ile, I wad I sud keep a' yer watches
gaein like the verra universe. But it wad be an ill thing for me, ye
ken. Sae maybe a' thing's for the best efter a'.--Noo, ye see, i' this
het weather, the ile keeps fine an' saft, and disna clog the
warks.--But losh preserves a'! What's that?"
Staring up the street towards the sunset, which coloured all their
faces a red bronze, stood a group of townsfolk, momently increasing,
from which, before Wattie's party could reach it, burst a general
explosion of laughter.
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