Erchie My Droll Friend eBook

Excerpt: "On Sundays he is the beadle of our church; at other times he waits. In his ecclesiastical character there is a solemn dignity about his deportment that compels most of us to call him Mr MacPherson; in his secular hours, when passing the fruit at a city banquet, or when at the close of the repast he sweeps away the fragments of the dinner-rolls, and whisperingly expresses in your left ear a fervent hope that "ye’ve enjoyed your dinner," he is simply Erchie. Once I forgot, deluded a moment into a Sunday train of thought by his reverent way of laying down a bottle of Pommery, and called him Mr MacPherson. He reproved me with a glance of his eye. "There’s nae Mr MacPhersons here," said he afterwards; "at whit ye might call the social board I’m jist Erchie, or whiles Easy-gaun Erchie wi’ them that kens me langest. There’s sae mony folks in this world don’t like to hurt your feelings that if I was kent as Mr MacPherson on this kind o’ job I wadna mak’ enough to pay for starchin’ my shirts."" (Excerpt from Wikipedia)