He was a wizened, shivering old man, often bare-footed, wearing at the best a thin ragged coat that had been black but was green-brown with age, and he made his spunks as well as sold them.

He brought Bacon and Adam Smith into Thrums, and he loved to recite long screeds from Spenser, with a running commentary on the versification and the luxuriance of the diction.

Of Jamie's death I do not care to write.

He went without many a dinner in order to buy a book.
The Coat of Many Colours and Silva Robbie were two street preachers who gave the Thrums ministers some work.

They occasionally appeared at the club.