Damn ye! gang oot, gin ye be gaun to stick me throu and throu wi' yer een, that gait." "I beg your pardon, Mr Cupples.

I didn't mean to be rude," said Alec humbly.
"Weel, cut yer stick, I hae eneuch o' ye for ae nicht.

I canna stan' glowerin' een, especially i' the heids o' idiots o' innocents like you." I am sorry to have to record what Alec learned from the landlady afterwards, that Mr Cupples went to bed that night, notwithstanding it was the Sabbath, more drunk than she had ever known him.

Indeed he could not properly be said to have gone to bed at all, for he had tumbled on the counter-pane in his clothes and clean shirt-collar; where she had found him fast asleep the next morning, with Gurnall's _Christian Armour_ terribly crumpled under him.
"But," said Alec, "what _is_ Mr Cupples ?" "That's a queston he cudna weel answer ye himsel'," was the reply.

"He does a heap o' things; writes for the lawyers whiles; buys and sells queer buiks; gies lessons in Greek and Hebrew--but he disna like that--he canna bide to be contred, and laddies is gey contresome; helps onybody that wants help i' the way o' figures--whan their buiks gang wrang ye ken, for figures is some ill for jummlin'.