At all events, they supplied the sound of water, without which Nature's orchestra is not full.
Wattie Sim, the watchmaker, long and lank, with grey bushy eyebrows meeting over his nose, wandered, with the gait of a heedless pair of compasses, across from his own shop to Redford the bookseller's, at whose door a small group was already gathered.
"Well, Wattie," said Captain Clashmach, "how goes the world with you ?" "Muckle the same's wi' yersel', Captain, and the doctor there," answered Wattie with a grin.

"Whan the time's guid for ither fowk, it's but sae sae for you and me.

I haena had a watch come in for a haill ook (week)." "Hoo de ye accoont for that, Mr Sim ?" asked a shoemaker who stood near without belonging to the group.
"It's the ile, man, the ile.

Half the mischeef o' watches is the ile." "But I don't see," said the doctor, "how that can be, Sim." "Weel, ye see, sir," answered Wattie--and the words seemed somehow to have come tumbling silently down over the ridge of his nose, before he caught them in his mouth and articulated them--"ye see, sir, watches is delicat things.

They're not to be traitet like fowk's insides wi' onything 'at comes first.