““Bout a month ago. She came in Boxing Day but I put her out. She was begging people, not even tapping, but begging for drink.” “She can’t have been disrupting ye, surely?” asked Maureen. “See those old swines over there?” He gestured to his only customers. The old men heard him and their chat fell silent. The barman raised his voice. “They were asking what they would get for their money. Auld swines, playing on the lassie’s weakness for the drink.” He lowered his voice. “That’s pensioners for ye they can smell a bargain a mile off,” he muttered, as if the bargain-hunting skill of the elderly was an unspoken universal truth.””
