he man who canna tell the difference between
closeness and common sense!

There's nae merit in saving, I'll admit, unless there's a reason
for't. The man who willna spend his siller when the time comes I
despise as much as can anyone. But I despise, too, or I pity, the poor
spendthrift who canna say "No!" when it wad be folly for him to spend
his siller. Sicca one can ne'er meet the real call when it comes; he's
bankrupt in the emergency. And that's as true of a nation as of a man
by himsel'.

In the wartime men everywhere came to learn the value o' saving--o'
being close fisted. Men o' means went proodly aboot, and showed their
patched clothes, where the wife had put a new seat in their troosers--
't'was a badge of honor, then, to show worn shoes, old claes.

Weel, was it only then, and for the first time, that it was patriotic
for a man to be cautious and saving? Had we all practiced thrift
before the war, wad we no hae been in a better state tae meet the
crisis when it came upon us? Ha' we no learned in all these twa
thousand years the meaning o' the parable o' the wise virgin and her
lamp?

It's never richt for a man or a country tae live frae hand to mooth,
save it be necessary. And if a man breaks the habit o' sae doin' it's
seldom necessary. The amusement that comes frae spendin' siller
recklessly dinna last; what does endure is the comfort o' kennin' weel
that, come what may, weel or woe, ye'll be ready. Siller in the bank
is just a symbol o' a man's ain character; it's ane o' many ways ither
man have o' judging him and learnin' what sort he is.

So I'm standing up still for Scotland and my fellow countrymen.
Because they'd been close and near in time of plenty they were able to
spend as freely as was needfu' when the time o' famine and sair
trouble came. So let's be havin' less chattering o' the meanness o'
the Scot, and more thocht o' his prudence and what that last has meant
to the Empire in the years o' war.

CHAPTER XIII

Folk ask me, whiles, hoo it comes that I dwell still sae far frae the
centre o' the world--as they've a way o' dubbin London! I like London,
fine, ye'll ken. It's a grand toon. I'd be an ungrateful chiel did I
no keep a warm spot for the place that turned me frae a provincial
comic into what I'm lucky enow to be the day. But I'm no wishfu' to
pass my days and nichts always in the great city. When I've an
engagement there, in the halls or in a revue, 'tis weel enow, and I'm