Keen and canny, they drive a close bargain but, scrupulous
and conscientious, fulfil it faithfully. Proud of their city and its
progress, its industries and manufactures, its civic importance, they are
a little disdainful perhaps, perhaps a little jealous, of their beautiful
elder sister, Edinburgh. Glasgow is the Belfast of Scotland!
Self-contained houses are the exception and are limited to the well-to-
do. The flat, in most cases, means a restricted number of apartments,
insufficient bedroom accommodation, and the _concealed bed_ is Glasgow's
way of solving the difficulty.
Tom and I did not take kindly to our hole in the wall, and soon found
other lodgings where space was not so circumscribed, and where we could
sleep in an open bed in an open room.
Our new quarters were a great success; a ground-floor flat with a fine
front door; a large well-furnished sitting room with two windows looking
out on to the street, and an equally large double-bedded room at the back
of the sitting room. Our landlady, a kind, motherly, canny Scotchwoman,
looked after us well and favoured us with many a bit of good advice: "You
must be guid laddies, and tak care o' the bawbees; you maun na eat
butchers' meat twice the week; tak plenty o' parritch and dinna be
extravagant.
Pages:
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82