tion>Neil Munro
Erchie, My Droll Friend
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066217174
Table of Contents
I INTRODUCTORY TO AN ODD CHARACTER
IX ERCHIE ON THE KING’S CRUISE
XVII THE NATIVES OF CLACHNACUDDEN
XXII ERCHIE IN AN ART TEA-ROOM
XXVII JINNET’S CHRISTMAS SHOPPING
PREFACE.
The majority of the following chapters are selections from “Erchie” articles contributed to the pages of the ‘Glasgow Evening News’ during the past three years. A number of the sketches are now published for the first time.
ERCHIE
I INTRODUCTORY TO AN ODD CHARACTER
On Sundays he is the beadle of our church; at other times he Waits. In his ecclesiastical character there is a solemn dignity about his deportment that compels most of us to call him Mr. MacPherson; in his secular hours, when passing the fruit at a city banquet, or when at the close of the repast he sweeps away the fragments of the dinner-rolls, and whisperingly expresses in your left ear a fervent hope that “ye’ve enjoyed your dinner,” he is simply Erchie.
Once I forgot, deluded a moment into a Sunday train of thought by his reverent way of laying down a bottle of Pommery, and called him Mr. MacPherson. He reproved me with a glance of his eye.
“There’s nae Mr. MacPhersons here,” said he afterwards; “at whit ye might call the social board I’m jist Erchie, or whiles Easy-gaun Erchie wi’ them that kens me langest. There’s sae mony folks in this world don’t like to hurt your feelings that if I was kent as Mr. MacPherson on this kind o’ job I wadna mak’ enough to pay for starchin’ my shirts.”
I
