e earth cryin',
"Bawbie, Bawbie! Oh, whaur are ye, Bawbie?"

"Wha i' the earth is he, or what's ado wi' him?" I heard somebody speer.

"Gude kens," said anither voice. "It's shurely some milkman wi' the
bloo deevils."

"Milkman! What wud a milkman do wi' an umberell, a portmanty, an' a
lum hat?"

Juist at that meenit Sandy cam' fleein' alang the passage again, an' by
this time a' the fowk in the hotel were oot on the stairs. If you had
only seen the scrammel. They scoored doon the stairs, into pantries,
in below tables; the room doors were bangin' like thunder, an' Sandy's
bell was ringin' like's Gabriel had lost his trumpet. You never heard
sic a din. I saw him comin' leggin' up the stair. The stairheid was
fu' o' fowk, a' oot in their nicht-goons to see what was ado; but, I
can ashure you, when they saw Sandy comin' fleein' up, they shune
disappeared. Six policemen cudna scattered them so quick. He came
spankin' into my room, an' drappit intil a chair, fair oot o' pech.

"Oh, Bawbie, Bawbie!" he cried, "gi'e's a drink. Tak' that umberell,"
he says, haudin' oot the bell to me. "I've been fleein' a' roond
Edinboro wi' naething on but my nicht-goon, an' my lum, an' a' the coal
cairters i' the kingdom ringin' their bells at my tails. Sic a wey o'
doin'! O dear me! I wiss I was hame again! O dear me!"

"That's no an umberell, you doited fule," says I. "That's the denner
bell you've been fleein' aboot wi' i' your hand."

Sandy lookit at the bell; an' you never saw sic a face as he put on.
He lut it drap on the flure wi' a clash like a clap o' thunder, an' I
heard a crood o' fowk scurryin' awa' frae oor bedroom door.

I tell'd the landlord hoo the thing happened, an' next mornin' at
brakfast time you never heard sic lauchin'. A' the chaps were clappin'
Sandy on the shuder; an' ane o' them says--"Ay, man; it's no mony fowk
that tak's their lum hat an' their umberell to their bed wi' them."

But the auld skipper was the king amon' them a'. Hoo he raggit Sandy
aboot bein' a somnambulashinist or something.

"When you want to steal a denner bell," he said to Sandy, "carry't by
the tongue, man. It's safer that wey. Bells an' weemin are awfu'
beggars when their tongues get lowse."

The captain was rale taen wi' Sandy, an', mind you, he hired a cab an'
drave Sandy an' me a' roond the toon. He said he was bidin' in
Carnoustie, and he wadna hae a nasay but we wud come an' hae a cup o'
tea wi' him. "