Page:Buchan - The Thirty-Nine Steps (Grosset Dunlap, 1915).djvu/108

 I doot that'll no help me, for they ken my kind o' no-weelness."

Then I had an inspiration. "Does the new surveyor know you?" I asked.

"No him. He's just been a week at the job He rins about in a wee motor-car, and wad speir the inside oot o' a whelk."

"Where's your house?" I asked, and was directed by a wavering finger to the cottage by the stream.

"Well, back to your bed," I said, "and sleep in peace. I'll take on your job for a bit and see the surveyor."

He stared at me blankly; then, as the notion dawned on his fuddled brain, his face broke into the vacant drunkard's smile.

"You're the billy," he cried. "It'll be easy eneuch managed. I've finished that bing o' stanes, so you needna chap ony mair this forenoon. Just take the barry, and wheel eneuch metal frae yon quarry doon the road to make anither bing the morn.

"My name's Alexander Turnbull, and I've been seeven year at this trade, and twenty