I confronted three pairs of eyes that missed nothing.
'There's waur jobs and there's better,' I said sententiously.

'I wad rather hae yours, sittin' a' day on your hinderlands on thae cushions.
It's you and your muckle cawrs that wreck my roads! If we a' had oor richts, ye sud be made to mend what ye break.' The bright-eyed man was looking at the newspaper lying beside Turnbull's bundle.
'I see you get your papers in good time,' he said.
I glanced at it casually.

'Aye, in gude time.

Seein' that that paper cam' out last Setterday I'm just Sax days late.' He picked it up, glanced at the superscription, and laid it down again.
One of the others had been looking at my boots, and a word in German called the speaker's attention to them.
'You've a fine taste in boots,' he said.

'These were never made by a country shoemaker.' 'They were not,' I said readily.