Hawkie sober, and sorry for it

HAWKIE called on a shopkeeper in the Trongate one night, soliciting alms to pay his lodgings.

"Surely," said the shopkeeper, "you have come little speed to-day, Hawkie, when you have not raised as much as would defray that small matter."

"That’s a’ ye ken," replied Hawkie; "my lodging costs me mair than yours does you."

"How do you make that out ?" asked the shopkeeper.

"In the first place," said Hawkie, "it costs me fifteen pence to mak’ me decently drunk—boards and banes mak’ up the bed and contents, an’ unless I were drunk I couldna sleep a wink—the bed that I ha’e to lie down on would mak’ a dog yowl to look at it, and then the landlady maun be paid, tho’ a week’s lodging-money would buy a’ the boards and bowls that’s in the house. I ha’e, indeed, made but little this day. I was up at the Cowcaddens, whar they ha’e little to themselves, and less disposition to spare onything; an’ wearied out, I lay down at the road-side to rest me—a’ the laddies were saying as they passed, ‘Hawkie’s drunk,’ and sorry was I that it wasna true."