Oor ain folk times

164 PAINT AND GLASS
Swankie, the boatman, to put out to sea to report, in
these words —
' Haud aff to the bar, Sandie, an' lat's hear fat ye see ' !
' Ay, ay, sir ! ' said Sandie as he bent to his oars.
'Noo, Tam,' said the provost, addressing the painter,
'gie the white lozen' a coat o' reed pent.'
No sooner said than done ; and as the ready brush
overlaid the white glass with its ruddy coating, the
appreciative councillors stepped back to watch the effect,
while the provost hailed the boatman, now rocking on the
tumbled waters of the bar. ' Fat div ye see, Sandie 1 '
A hoarse nautical bellow came back. ' I see a " reed
lichtie," sir ! '
At this, the delighted provost turned to Tam, and
said :
' Od, man ! Gie't anither coat, an' we'll lick the
Dundee folk yet.'
Again Tam applied the brush, but this time Math
such generous goodwill that the red lead utterly
obscured the light altogether, and poor Sandie in his
boat nearly got drowned trying to make his way back
in the dark, while the ' toon cooncillors ' barked their
shins and grazed their noses stumbling along the
breakwater on their obscured way home.
Ever since the Arbroathians have, in memory of
that attempt at sapient economy, been dubbed ' Reed
Lichties ' ; but on the whole, they accept the cognomen
with rather a good-humoured tolerance.
Dundee had its notoriety, no less than the other
towns, and the Dundee original was a character known
as ' Blin' Hughie.' When the benevolence of his native
townsmen had become somewhat exhausted by his im-