(A weary looking man enters, brushing the snow from his black Stetson and shaking loose from his black leather duster. His right hand hovers over a bodrhan slung at his hip. His left hand holds a bulging gunny sack. His long hair is tied back to walk in the storm.)

So this is where you all go when I can't find you! Pubman! A Guiness, if you will, and a dram of Drambuie to carry the flag! It's been a rare holiday, boys. Haggis for twenty and the family game o' spoons. What, you don't know how to play? Well you shuffle two decks o' cards and give each fool at the table five. Then the dealer draws one and tries to make three of a kind. If the card is not the one he needs, he passes it left. First to make three o' a kind picks up a spoon. Of course there's one less mouth-shovel than players don'tcha know. In my clan we plays with knives…The stitches look right fine, don'tch think?

Anyway, We were tryin' to choke down th' haggis, (tall tumblers of single malt help!) when me dear sainted mother says, "sing fer us Mikal." An' bats those nearly lashless eyes at me. What is a poor man to do, eh? So I stand and deliver in good fashion, runnin' a fair beat on the old skin-box here. I whirl my way through "Mary's Wedding," and do a good turn on ""The Wren."

All this time I see that I have been singing', the family has been packin' away the haggis to beat the band! If I am a man o' even simple brains, I figure I need to sing a bit longer, and they will have eaten all mine too!

What? You've never had haggis, girl? Imagine the stomach of a sheep, stuffed with oats and all the parts of the animal no human and few dogs would eat! Boil it in the stomach for an hour or so, and serve it grey and quivering on a platter with whiskey to drink. It's Scotland's revenge on all of us who came here instead of staying home in the highlands where we should have.

Anyway, I think I have it made! I decide one more song and I will not have to eat this stuff for a whole 'nother year. Then bang! I did it. What should come out of my mouth but "Some friends an' I in a public house, were playin' dominoes last night…" (Sorry, didn't mean to make you all run fer cover like that…I won't sing it, I promise!)

You guessed it; Knives went flyin'. Th' game o' spoons was delayed until all the sharps could be re-assembled and the bleeding could be staunched. An' to top it off, I had to take all the leftover haggis. It's in the gunny sack there, if you've a stout stomach…

Pubman! A liter of Guiness this time. I've a wish to sing. Anyone here know the fiddle part to "Colonial Boy???"

Mikal