It'll be all verra weel to talk of socialism and one thing and another. We've much tae do tae mak' the world a better place to live in. But what I canna see, for the life o' me, is why it should be richt to throw awa' all our fathers have done. Is there no good in the institutions that have served the world up to now? Are we to mak' everything ower new? I'm no thinking that, and I believe no man is thinking that, truly. The man who preaches the destruction of everything that is and has been has some reasons of his own not creditable to either his brain or his honesty, if you'll ask me what I think.

Let us think o' what these folk wad be destroying. The hame, for one thing. The hame, and the family. They'll talk to us o' the state. The state's a grand thing—a great thing. D'ye ken what the state is these new fangled folk are aye talkin' of? It's no new thing. It's just the bit country Britons ha' been dying for, a' these weary years in the trenches. It's just Britain, the land we've a' loved and wanted to see happy and safe—safe frae the Hun and frae the famine he tried to bring upon it. Do these radicals, as they call themselves—they'd tak' every name they please to themselves!—think they love their state better than the boys who focht and deed and won loved their country?

Eh, and let's think back a bit, just a wee bit, into history. There's a reason for maist of the things there are in the world. Sometimes it's a good reason; whiles it's a bad one. But there's a reason, and you maun e'en be reasonable when you come to talk o' making changes.

In the beginning there was just man, wasna there, wi' his woman, when he could find her, and catch her, and tak' her wi' him tae his cave, and their bairns. And a man, by his lane, was in trouble always wi' the great beasties they had in yon days. Sae it came that he found it better and safer tae live close by wi' other men, and what more natural than that they should be those of his ane bluid kin? Sae the family first, and then the clan, came into being. And frae them grew the tribe, and finally the nation.

Ye ken weel that Britain was no always the ane country. There were many kings in Britain lang agane. But whiles it was so armies could come from over the sea and land, and ravage the country. And sae, in the end, it was found better tae ha' the ane strong country and the ane strong rule. Syne then no foreign invader has e'er set foot in Britain. Not till they droppit frae the skies frae Zeppelins and German Gothas ha' armed men stood on British soil in centuries—and they, the baby killers frae the skies, were no alarming when they came doon to earth.

Now, wull we be changing all the things all our centuries ha' taught us to be good and useful? Maybe we wull. Change is life, and all living things maun change, just as a man's whole body is changed in every seven years, they tell us. But change that is healthy is gradual, too.

Here's a thing I've had tae tak' note of. I went aboot a great deal during the war, in Britain and in America. I was in Australia and New Zealand, too, but it was in Britain and America that I saw most. There were, in both lands, pro-Germans. Some were honest; they were wrang, and I thocht them wicked, but I could respect them, in a fashion, so lang as they came oot and said what was in their minds, and took the consequences. They'd be interned, or put safely oot o' the way. But there were others that skulked and hid, and tried to stab the laddies who were doing the fichtin' in the back. They'd talk o' pacifism, and they'd be conscientious objectors, who had never been sair troubled by their conscience before.

Noo, it's those same folk, those who helped the Hun during the war by talking of the need of peace at any price, who said that any peace was better than any war, who are maist anxious noo that we should let the Bolsheviks frae Russia show us how to govern ourselves. I'm a suspicious man, it may be. But I cannot help thinking that those who were enemies of their countries during the war should not be taken very seriously now when they proclaim themselves as the only true patriots.

They talk of internationalism, and of the common interests of the proletariat against capitalism. But of what use is internationalism unless all the nations of the world are of the same mind? How shall it be safe for some nations to guide themselves by these fine sounding principles when others are but lying in wait to attack them when they are unready? I believe in peace. I believe the laddies who fought in France and in the other battlegrounds of this war won peace for humanity. But they began the work; it is for us who are left to finish it.

And we canna finish it by talk. There must be deeds as weel as words. And what I'm thinking more and more is that those who did not do their part in these last years ha' small call to ask to be heard now. There'd be no state for them to talk o' sae glibly noo had it no been for those who put on uniforms and found the siller for a' the war loans that had to be raised, and to pay the taxes.

Aye, and when you speak o' taxes, there's another thing comes to mind. These folk who ha' sae a muckle to say aboot the injustice of conditions pay few taxes. They ha' no property, as a rule, and no great stake in the land. But they're aye ready to mak' rules and regulations for those who've worked till they've a place in the world. If they were busier themselves, maybe they'd not have so much time to see how much is wrong. Have you not thought, whiles, it was strange you'd not noticed all these terrible things they talk to you aboot? And has it not been just that you've had too many affairs of your ain to handle?

There are things for us all to think about, dear knows. We've come, of late years, we were doing it too much before the war, to give too great weight to things that were not of the spirit. Men have grown used to more luxury than it is good for man to have. Look at our clubs. Palaces, no less, some of them. What need has a man of a temple or a palace for a club. What should a club be? A comfortable place, is it no, whaur a man can go to meet his friends, and smoke a pipe, maybe—find a bit and a sup if the wife is not at hame, and he maun be eating dinner by his lane. Is there need of marble columns and rare woods?

And a man's own hoose. We've been thinking lately, it seems to me, too much of luxury, and too little of use and solid comfort. We wasted much strength and siller before the war. Aweel, we've to pay, and to go on paying, noo, for a lang time. We've paid the price in blood, and for a lang time the price in siller will be kept in our minds. We'll ha' nae choice aboot luxury, maist of us. And that'll be a rare gude thing.

Things! Things! It's sae easy for them to rule us. We live up to them. We act as if they owned us, and a' the time it's we who own them, and that we maun not forget. And we grow to think that a'thing we've become used to is something we can no do wi'oot. Oh, I'm as great a sinner that way as any. I was forgetting, before the war came to remind me, the days when I'd been puir and had had tae think longer over the spending of a saxpence than I had need to in 1914, in you days before the Kaiser turned his Huns loose, over using a hundred poonds.

I'm not blaming a puir body for being bitter when things gae wrong. All I'm saying is he'll be happier, and his troubles will be sooner mended if he'll only be thinking that maybe he's got a part in them himsel'. It's hard to get things richt when you're thinking they're a' the fault o' some one else, some one you can't control. Ca' the guilty one what you will—a prime minister, a capitalist, a king. Is it no hard to mak' a wrong thing richt when it's a' his fault?

But suppose you stop and think, and you come tae see that some of your troubles lie at your ain door? What's easier then than to mak' them come straight? There are things that are wrong wi' the world that we maun all pitch in together to mak' richt—I'm kenning that as well as anyone. But there's muckle that's only for our own selves to correct, and until that's done let's leave the others lie.

It's as if a man waur sair distressed because his toon was a dirty toon. He'd be thinking of hoo it must look when strangers came riding through it in their motor cars. And he'd aye be talking of what a bad toon it was he dwelt in; how shiftless, how untidy. And a' the time, mind you, his ain front yard would be full o' weeds, and the grass no cut, and papers and litter o' a' sorts aboot.

Weel, is it no better for that man to clean his ain front yard first? Then there'll be aye ane gude spot for strangers to see. And there'll be the example for his neighbors, too. They'll be wanting their places to look as well as his, once they've seen his sae neat and tidy. And then, when they've begun tae go to work in sic a fashion, soon the whole toon will begin to want to look weel, and the streets will look as fine as the front yards.

When I hear an agitator, a man who's preaching against all things as they are, I'm always afu' curious aboot that man. Has he a wife? Has he bairns o' his ain? And, if he has, hoo does he treat them?

There's men, you know, who'll gang up and doon the land talkin' o' humanity. But they'll no be kind to the wife, and their weans will run and hide awa' when they come home. There's many a man has keen een for the mote in his neighbor's eye who canna see the beam in his own— that's as true to-day as when it was said first twa thousand years agane.

I ken fine there's folk do no like me. I've stood up and talked to them, from the stage, and I've heard say that Harry Lauder should stick to being a comic, and not try to preach. Aye, I'm no preacher, and fine I ken it. And it's no preaching I try to do; I wish you'd a' understand that. I'm only saying, whiles I'm talking so, what I've seen and what I think. I'm but one plain man who talks to others like him.

"Harry," I've had them say to me, in wee toons in America, "ca' canny here. There's a muckle o' folk of German blood. Ye'll be hurtin' their feelings if you do not gang easy——"

It was a lee! I ne'er hurt the feelings o' a man o' German blood that was a decent body—and there were many and many o' them. There in America the many had to suffer for the sins of the few. I've had Germans come tae me wi' tears in their een and thank me for the way I talked and the way I was helping to win the war. They were the true Germans, the ones who'd left their native land because they cauldna endure the Hun any more than could the rest of the world when it came to know him.

But I couldna ha gone easy, had I known that I maun lose the support of thousands of folk for what I said. The truth as I'd seen it and knew it I had to tell. I've a muckle to say on that score.



CHAPTER XV

It was as great a surprise tae me as it could ha' been to anyone else when I discovered that I could move men and women by speakin' tae them. In the beginning, in Britain, I made speeches to help the recruiting. My boy John had gone frae the first, and through him I knew much about the army life, and the way of it in those days. Sae I began to mak' a bit speech, sometimes, after the show.

And then I organized my recruiting band—Hieland laddies, wha went up and doon the land, skirling the pipes and beating the drum. The laddies wad flock to hear them, and when they were brocht together so there was easy work for the sergeants who were wi' the band. There's something about the skirling of the pipes that fires a man's blood and sets his feet and his fingers and a' his body to tingling.

Whiles I'd be wi' the band masel'; whiles I'd be off elsewhere. But it got sae that it seemed I was being of use to the country, e'en though they'd no let me tak' a gun and ficht masel'. When I was in America first, after the war began, America was still neutral. I was ne'er one o' those who blamed America and President Wilson for that. It was no ma business to do sae. He was set in authority in that country, and the responsibility and the authority were his. They were foolish Britons, and they risked much, who talked against the President of the United States in yon days.

I keened a' the time that America wad tak' her stand on the side o' the richt when the time came. And when it came at last I was glad o' the chance to help, as I was allowed tae do. I didna speak sae muckle in favor of recruiting; it was no sae needfu' in America as it had been in Britain, for in America there was conscription frae the first. In America they were wise in Washington at the verra beginning. They knew the history of the war in Britain, and they were resolved to profit by oor mistakes.

But what was needed, and sair needed, in America, was to mak' people who were sae far awa' frae the spectacle o' war as the Hun waged it understand what it meant. I'd been in France when I came back to America in the autumn o' 1917. My boy was in France still; I'd knelt beside his grave, hard by the Bapaume road. I'd seen the wilderness of that country in Picardy and Flanders. We'd pushed the Hun back frae a' that country I'd visited—I'd seen Vimy Ridge, and Peronne, and a' the other places.

I told what I'd seen. I told the way the Hun worked. And I spoke for the Liberty Loans and the other drives they were making to raise money in America—the Red Cross, the Y. M. C. A., the Salvation Army, the Knights of Columbus, and a score of others. I knew what it was like, over yonder in France, and I could tell American faithers and mithers what their boys maun see and do when the great transports took them oversea.

It was for me, to whom folk would listen, tae tell the truth as I'd seen it. It was no propaganda I was engaged in—there was nae need o' propaganda. The truth was enow. Whiles, I'll be telling you, I found trouble. There were places where folk of German blood forgot they'd come to America to be free of kaisers and junkers. They stood by their old country, foul as her deeds were. They threatened me, more than once; they were angry enow at me to ha' done me a mischief had they dared. But they dared not, and never a voice was raised against me publicly—in a theatre or a hall where I spoke, I mean.

I went clear across America and back in that long tour. When I came back it was just as the Germans began their last drive. Ye'll be minding hoo black things looked for a while, when they broke our British line, or bent it back, rather, where the Fifth Army kept the watch? Mind you, I'd been over all that country our armies had reclaimed frae the Hun in the long Battle o' the Somme. My boy John, the wean I'd seen grow frae a nursling in his mither's arms, had focht in that battle.

He'd been wounded, and come hame tae his mither to be nursed back to health. She'd done that, and she'd blessed him, and kissed him gude bye, and he'd gone oot there again. And—that time, he stayed. There's a few words I can see, written on a bit o' yellow paper, each time I close ma een.

"Captain John Lauder, killed, December 28. Official."

Aye, I'd gone all ower that land in which he'd focht. I'd seen the spot where he was killed. I'd lain doon beside his grave. And then, in the spring of 1918, as I travelled back toward New York, across America, the Hun swept doon again through Peronne and Bapaume. He took back a' that land British blood had been spilled like watter to regain frae him.

The pity of it! Sae I was thinking each day as I read the bulletins! Had America come in tae late? I'd read the words of Sir Douglas Haig, that braw and canny Scot wha held the British line in France, when he said Britain was fichtin' wi' her back tae the wall. Was Ypres to be lost, after four years? Was the Channel to be laid open to the Hun? It lookit sae, for a time.

I was like a man possessed by a de'il, I'm thinking, in you days. I couldna think of ought but the way the laddies were suffering in France. And it filled me wi' rage tae see those who couldna or wouldna understand. They'd sit there when I begged them to buy Liberty Bonds, and they'd be sae slow to see what I was driving at. I lost ma temper, sometimes. Whiles I'd say things to an audience that were no so, that were unfair. If I was unjust to any in those days, I'm sorry. But they maun understand that ma heart was in France, wi' them that was deein' and suffering new tortures every day. I'd seen what I was talking of.

Whiles, in America, I was near to bein' ashamed, for the way I was always seekin' to gain the siller o' them that came to hear me sing. I was raising money for ma fund for the Scotch wounded. I'd a bit poem I'd written that was printed on a card to be sold, and there were some wee stamps. Mrs. Lauder helped me. Each day, as an audience went oot, she'd be in the lobby, and we raised a grand sum before we were done. And whiles, too, when I spoke on the stage, money would come raining doon, so that it looked like a green snowstorm.

I maun no be held to account too strictly, I'm thinking, for the hard things I sometimes said on that tour. I tak' back nothing that was deserved; there were toons, and fine they'll ken themselves wi'oot ma naming them, that ought to be ashamed of themselves. There was the book I wrote. Every nicht I'd auction off a copy to the highest bidder—the money tae gae tae the puir wounded laddies in Scotland. A copy went for five thousand dollars ane nicht in New York!

That was a grand occasion, I'm tellin' ye. It was in the Metropolitan Opera Hoose, that great theatre where Caruso and Melba and a' the stars of the opera ha' sung sae often. Aye, Harry Lauder had sung there tae—sung there that nicht! The hoose was fu', and I made my talk.

And then I held up my book, "A Minstrel in France." I asked that they should buy a copy. The bidding started low. But up and up it ran. And when I knocked it doon at last it was for twenty-five hundred dollars —five hundred poonds! But that wasna a'. I was weel content. But the gentleman that bocht it lookit at it, and then sent it back, and tauld me to auction it all ower again. I did, and this time, again, it went for twenty-five hundred dollars. So there was five thousand dollars—a thousand poonds—for ma wounded laddies at hame in Scotland.

Noo, think o' the contrast. There's a toon—I'll no be writing doon its name—where they wadna bid but twelve dollars—aboot twa poond ten shillings—for the book! Could ye blame me for being vexed? Maybe I said more than I should, but I dinna think so. I'm thinking still those folk were mean. But I was interested enough to look to see what that toon had done, later, and I found oot that its patriotism must ha' been awakened soon after, for it bocht its share and more o' bonds, and it gave its siller freely to all the bodies that needed money for war work. They were sair angry at old Harry Lauder that nicht he tauld them what he thocht of their generosity, but it maybe he did them gude, for a' that!

I'd be a dead man the noo, e'en had I as many lives as a dozen nine lived cats, had a' the threats that were made against me in America been carried oot. They'd tell me, in one toon after anither, that it wadna be safe tae mak' ma talk against the Hun. But I was never frightened. You know the old saying that threatened men live longest, and I'm a believer in that. And, as it was, the towns where there were most people of German blood were most cordial to me.

I ken fine how it was that that was so. All Germans are not Huns. And in America the decent Germans, the ones who were as filled with horror when the Lusitania was sunk as were any other decent bodies, were anxious to do all they could to show that they stood with the land of their adoption.

I visited many an American army camp. I've sung for the American soldiers, as well as the British, in America, and in France as well. And I've never seen an American regiment yet that did not have on its muster rolls many and many a German name. They did well, those American laddies wi' the German names. They were heroes like the rest.

It's a strange thing, the way it fell to ma lot tae speak sae much as I did during the war. I canna quite believe yet that I was as usefu' as my friends ha' told me I was. Yet they've come near to making me believe it. They've clapped a Sir before my name to prove they think so, and I've had the thanks of generals and ministers and state. It's a comfort to me to think it's so. It was a sair grief tae me that when my boy was dead I couldna tak' his place. But they a' told me I'd be wasted i' the trenches.

A man must do his duty as he's made to see it. And that's what I tried to do in the war. If I stepped on any man's toes that didna deserve it, I'm sorry. I'd no be unfair to any man. But I think that when I said hard things to the folk of a toon they were well served, as a rule, and I know that it's so that often and often folk turned to doing the things I'd blamed them for not doing even while they were most bitter against me, and most eager to see me ridden oot o' toon upon a rail, wi' a coat o' tar and feathers to cover me! Sae I'm not minding much what they said, as long as what they did was a' richt.

All's well that ends well, as Wull Shakespeare said. And the war's well ended. It's time to forget our ain quarrels the noo as to the way o' winning; we need dispute nae mair as to that. But there's ane thing we maun not forget, I'm thinking. The war taught us many and many a thing, but none that was worth mair to us than this. It taught us that we were invincible sae lang as we stood together, we folk who speak the common English tongue.

Noo, there's something we knew before, did we no? Yet we didna act upon our knowledge. Shall we ha' to have anither lesson like the one that's past and done wi', sometime in the future? Not in your lifetime or mine, I mean, but any time at a'? Would it no be a sair pity if that were so? Would it no mak' God feel that we were a stupid lot, not worth the saving?

None can hurt us if we but stand together, Britons and Americans. We've a common blood and a common speech. We've our differences, true enough. We do not do a' things i' the same way. But what matter's that, between friends? We've learned we can be the best o' friends. Our laddies learned that i' France, when Englishman and Scot, Yankee and Anzac, Canadian and Irishman and Welshman, broke the Hindenburg line together.

We've the future o' the world, that those laddies saved, to think o' the noo. And we maun think of it together, and come to the problems that are still left together, if we would solve them in the richt way, and wi'oot havin' to spill more blood to do so.

When men ha' fought together and deed together against a common foe they should be able to talk together aboot anything that comes up between them, and mak' common cause against any foe that threatens either of them. And I'm thinking that no foe will ever threaten any of the nations that fought against the Hun that does no threaten them a'!



CHAPTER XVI

It's a turning point in the life of any artist like myself to mak' a London success. Up tae that time in his career neithing is quite certain. The provinces may turn on him; it's no likely, but they may. It's true there's many a fine artist has ne'er been able to mak' a London audience care for him, and he's likely to stay in the provinces a' his life long, and be sure, always, o' his greetin' frae those who've known him a lang time. But wi' London having stamped success upon ye ye can be sure o' many things. After that there's still other worlds to conquer, but they're no sae hard tae reach.

For me that first nicht at Gatti's old hall in the Westminster Bridge road seems like a magic memory, even the noo. I'm sorry the wife was no wi' me; had I been able to be sure o' getting the show Tom Tinsley gied me I'd ha' had her doon. As it was it wad ha' seemed like tempting Providence, and I've never been any hand tae do that. I'm no superstitious, exactly—certainly I'm no sae for a Scot. But I dinna believe it's a wise thing tae gave oot o' the way and look for trouble. I'll no walk under a ladder if I can help it, I'll tell ye, if ye ask me why, that I avoid a ladder because I've heard o' painters dropping paint and costin' them that was beneath the price o' the cleaning of their claes, and ye can believe that or no, as ye've a mind!

Ye've heard o' men who went to bed themselves at nicht and woke up famous. Weel, it was no like that, precisely, wi' me after the nicht at Gatti's. I was no famous i' the morn. The papers had nowt to say o' me; they'd not known Mr. Harry Lauder was to mak' his first appearance in the metropolis. And, e'en had they known, I'm no thinking they'd ha' sent anyone to write me up. That was tae come to me later on. Aye, I've had my share of write-ups in the press; I'd had them then, in the provincial papers. But London was anither matter.

Still, there were those who knew that a new Scotch comic had made an audience like him. It's a strange thing how word o' a new turn flies aboot amang those regulars of a hall's audiences. The second nicht they were waiting for my turn, and I got a rare hand when I stepped oot upon the stage—the nicht before there'd been dead silence i' the hoose. Aye, the second nicht was worse than the first. The first nicht success micht ha' been an accident; the second aye tells the tale. It's so wi' a play. I've friends who write plays, and they say the same thing—they aye wait till the second nicht before they cheer, no matter how grand a success they think they ha' the first nicht, and hoo many times they ha' to step oot before the curtain and bow, and how many times they're called upon for a speech.

So when the second nicht they made me gie e'en more encores than the first I began to be fair sure. And the word had spread, I learned, to the managers o' other halls; twa-three of them were aboot to hear me. My agent had seen to that; he was glad enough to promise me all the London engagements I wanted noo that I'd broken the ice for masel'! I didna blame him for havin' been dootfu'. He knew his business, and it would ha' been strange had he ta'en me at my word when I told him I could succeed where others had failed that had come wi' reputations better than my own.

I think I'd never quite believed, before, the tales I'd heard of the great sums the famous London artists got. It took the figures I saw on the contracts I was soon being asked to sign for appearances at the Pavilion and the Tivoli and all the other famous music halls to make me realize that all I'd heard was true. They promised me more for second appearances, and my agent advised me against making any long term engagements then.

"The future's yours, now, Harry, my boy," he said. "Wait—and you can get what you please from them. And then—there's America to think about."

I laughed at him when he said that. My mind had not carried me sae far as America yet. It seemed a strange thing, and a ridiculous one, that he who'd been a miner digging coal for fifteen shillings a week not so lang syne, should be talking about making a journey of three thousand miles to sing a few wee songs to folk who had never heard of him. And, indeed, it was a far cry frae those early times in London to my American tours. I had much to do before it was time for me to be thinking seriously of that.

For a time, soon after my appearance at Gatti's, I lived in London. A man can be busy for six months in the London halls, and singing every nicht at more than one. There is a great ring of them, all about the city. London is different frae New York or any great American city in that. There is a central district in which maist of the first class theatres are to be found, just like what is called Broadway in New York. But the music halls—they're vaudeville theatres in New York, o' coorse—are all aboot London.

Folk there like to gae to a show o' a nicht wi'oot travelling sae far frae hame after dinner. And in London the distances are verra great, for the city's spread oot much further than New York, for example. In London there are mair wee hooses; folk don't live in apartments and flats as much as they do in New York. So it's a pleasant thing for your Londoner that he can step aroond the corner any nicht and find a music hall. There are half a dozen in the East End; there are more in Kensington, and out Brixton way. There's one in Notting Hill, and Bayswater, and Fulham—aye, there a' ower the shop.

And it's an interesting thing, the way ye come to learn the sort o' thing each audience likes. I never grow tired of London music-hall audiences. A song that makes a great hit in one will get just the tamest sort of a hand in another. You get to know the folk in each hoose when you've played one or twa engagements in it; they're your friends. It's like having a new hame everywhere you go.

In one hoose you'll find the Jews. And in another there'll be a lot o' navvies in the gallery. Sometimes they'll be rough customers in the gallery of a London music hall. They're no respecters of reputations. If they like you you can do nae wrong; if they don't, God help you! I've seen artists who'd won a great name on the legitimate stage booed in the halls; I've been sorry for mair than one o' the puir bodies.

You maun never be stuck up if you'd mak' friends and a success in the London halls. You maun remember always that it's the audience you're facing can make you or break you. And, another thing. It's a fatal mistake to think that because you've made a success once you're made for life. You are—if you keep on giving the audience what you've made it like once. But you maun do your best, nicht after nicht, or they'll soon ken the difference—and they'll let you know they ken it, too.

I'm often asked if I'm no sorry I'm just a music hall singer. It's a bonnie thing to be a great actor, appearing in fine plays. No one admires a great actor in a great play more than I do, and one of the few things that ever makes me sorry my work is what it is is that I can sae seldom sit me doon in a stall in a theatre and watch a play through. But, after a', why should I envy any other man his work? I do my best. I study life, and the folk that live it, and in my small way I try to represent life in my songs. It's my way, after a', and it's been a gude way for me. No, I'm no sorry I'm just a music hall singer.

I've done a bit o' acting. My friend Graham Moffatt wrote a play I was in, once, that was no sicca poor success—"A Scrape o' the Pen" it was called. I won't count the revues I've been in; they're more like a variety show than a regular theatrical performance, any nicht in the week.

I suppose every man that's ever stepped before the footlichts has thought o' some day appearing in a character from Wull Shakespeare's plays, and I'm no exception tae the rule. I'll gae further; I'll say that every man that's ever been any sort of actor at a' has thought o' playing Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. But I made up ma mind, lang ago, that Hamlet was nae for me. Syne then, though, I've thought of another o' Shakespeare's characters I'd no mind playing. It's a Scottish part —Macbeth.

They've a' taken Macbeth too seriously that ha' played him. I'm thinking Shakespeare's ghost maun laugh when it sees hoo all the great folk ha' missed the satire o' the character. Macbeth was a Scottish comedian like masel'—that's why I'd like to play him. And then, I'm awfu' pleased wi' the idea o' his make-up. He wears great whiskers, and I'm thinkin' they'd be a great improvement to me, wi' the style o' beauty I have. I notice that when a character in one o' ma songs wears whiskers I get an extra round o' applause when I come on the stage.

And then, while Macbeth had his faults, he was a verra accomplished pairson, and I respect and like him for that. He did a bit o' murdering, but that was largely because of his wife. I sympathize wi' any man that takes his wife's advice, and is guided by it. I've done that, ever since I was married. Tae be sure, I made a wiser choice than did Macbeth, but it was no his fault the advice his lady gied him was bad, and he should no be blamed as sair as he is for the way he followed it. He was punished, tae, before ever Macduff killed him— wasna he a victim of insomnia, and is there anything worse for a man tae suffer frae than that?

Aye, if ever the time comes when I've a chance to play in one of Wull Shakespeare's dramas, it's Macbeth I shall choose instead of Hamlet. So I gie you fair warning. But it's only richt to say that the wife tells me I'm no to think of doing any such daft thing, and that my managers agree wi' her. So I think maybe I'll have to be content just to be a music hall singer a' my days—till I succeed in retiring, that is, and I think that'll be soon, for I've a muckle tae do, what wi twa-three mair books I've promised myself to write.

Weel, I was saying, a while back, before I digressed again, that soon after that nicht at Gatti's I moved to London for a bit. It was wiser, it seemed tae me. Scotland was a lang way frae London, and it was needfu' for me to be in the city so much that I grew tired of being awa' sae much frae the wife and my son John. Sae, for quite a spell, I lived at Tooting. It was comfortable there. It wasna great hoose in size, but it was well arranged. There was some ground aboot it, and mair air than one can find, as a rule, in London. I wasna quite sae cramped for room and space to breathe as if I'd lived in the West End —in a flat, maybe, like so many of my friends of the stage. But I always missed the glen, and I was always dreaming of going back to Scotland, when the time came.

It was then I first began to play the gowf. Ye mind what I told ye o' my first game, wi' Mackenzie Murdoch? I never got tae be much more o' a hand than I was then, nae matter hoo much I played the game. I'm a gude Scot, but I'm thinkin' I didna tak' up gowf early enough in life. But I liked to play the game while I was living in London. For ane thing it reminded me of hame; for another, it gie'd me a chance to get mair exercise than I would ha done otherwise.

In London ye canna walk aboot much. You ha' to gae tae far at a time. Thanks to the custom of the halls, I was soon obliged to ha' a motor brougham o' my ain. It was no an extravagance. There's no other way of reaching four or maybe five halls in a nicht. You've just time to dash from one hall, when your last encore's given, and reach the next for your turn. If you depended upon the tube or even on taxicabs, you could never do it.

It was then that my brother-in-law, Tom Vallance, began to go aboot everywhere wi' me. I dinna ken what I'd be doing wi'oot Tom. He's been all ower the shop wi' me—America, Australia, every where I gae. He knows everything I need in ma songs, and he helps me tae dress, and looks after all sorts of things for me. He packs all ma claes and ma wigs; he keeps ma sticks in order. You've seen ma sticks? Weel, it's Tom always hands me the richt one just as I'm aboot to step on the stage. If he gied me the stick I use in "She's Ma Daisy" when I was aboot to sing "I Love a Lassie" I believe I'd have tae ha' the curtain rung doon upon me. But he never has. I can trust old Tom. Aye, I ca' trust him in great things as well as sma'.

It took me a lang time to get used to knowing I had arrived, as the saying is. Whiles I'd still be worried, sometimes, aboot the future. But soon it got so's I could scarce imagine a time when getting an engagement had seemed a great thing. In the old days I used to look in the wee book I kept, and I'd see a week's engagement marked, a long time ahead, and be thankfu' that that week, at least, there'd be siller coming in.

And noo—well, the noo it's when I look in the book and see, maybe a year ahead, a blank week, when I've no singing the do, that I'm pleased.

"Eh, Tom," I'll say. "Here's a bit o' luck! Here's the week frae September fifteenth on next year when I've no dates!"

"Aye, Harry," he'll answer me. "D'ye no remember? We'll be on the ocean then, bound for America. That's why there's no dates that week."

But the time will be coming soon when I can stop and rest and tak' life easy. 'Twill no be as happy a time as I'd dreamed it micht be. His mither and I had looked forward to settling doon when ma work was done, wi' my boy John living nearby. I bought my farm at Dunoon that he micht ha' a place o' his ain to tak' his wife tae when he married her, and where his bairns could be brought up as bairns should be, wi' glen and hill to play wi'. Aweel, God has not willed that it should be sae. Mrs. Lauder and I canna have the grandchildren we'd dreamed aboot to play at our knees.

But we've one another still, and there's muckle tae be thankfu' for.

One thing I liked fine aboot living in London as I did. I got to know my boy better than I could ha' done had we stayed at hame ayant the Tweed. I could sleep hame almost every nicht, and I'd get up early enough i' the morning to spend some time wi' him. He was at school a great deal, but he was always glad tae see his dad. He was a rare hand wi' the piano, was John—a far better musician than ever I was or shall be. He'd play accompaniments for me often, and I've never had an accompanist I liked sae well. It's no because he was my boy I say that he had a touch, and a way of understanding just what I was trying tae do when I sang a song, that made his accompaniment a part of the song and no just something that supported ma voice.

But John had no liking for the stage or the concert platform. It was the law that interested him. That aye seemed a little strange tae me. But I was glad that he should do as it pleased him. It was a grand thing, his mother and I thought, that we could see him gae to Cambridge, as we'd dreamed, once, many years before it ever seemed possible, that he micht do. And before the country called him to war he took his degree, and was ready to begin to read law.

We played many a game o' billiards together, John and I, i' the wee hoose at Tooting. We were both fond o' the game, though I think neither one of us was a great player. John was better than I, but I was the stronger in yon days, and I'd tak' a great swipe sometimes and pocket a' the balls. John was never quite sure whether I meant to mak' some o' the shots, but he was a polite laddie, and he'd no like to be accusing his faither o' just being lucky.

"Did ye mean that shot, pal" he'd ask me, sometimes. I'd aye say yes, and, in a manner o' speaking, I had.

Aweel, yon days canna come again! But it's gude to think upon them. And it's better to ha' had them than no, no matter what Tennyson sang once. "A sorrow's crown of sorrow—to remember happier things." Was it no sae it went? I'm no thinking sae! I'm glad o' every memory I have of the boy that lies in France.



CHAPTER XVII

There was talk that I micht gae to America lang before the time came. I'd offers—oh, aye! But I was uncertain. It was a tricky business, tae go sae far frae hame. A body would be a fool to do sae unless he waur sure and siccar against loss. All the time I was doing better and better in Britain. And it seems that American visitors to Britain, tourists and the like, came to hear me often, and carried hame reports—to say nothing of the scouts the American managers always have abroad.

Still, I was verra reluctant tae mak' the journey. I was no kennin' what sort of a hand I'd be for an ocean voyage. And then, I was liking my ain hame fine, and the idea of going awa' frae it for many months was trying tae me. It was William Morris persuaded me in the end, of course. There's a man would persuade a'body at a' tae do his will. He'll be richt sae, often, you see, that you canna hault oot against the laddie at all. I'm awfu' fond o' Wullie Morris. He should ha' been a Scot.

He made me great promises. I didna believe them a', for it seemed impossible that they could be true. But I liked the man, and I decided that if the half of what he said was true it would be verra interesting—verra interesting indeed. Whiles, when you deal w' a man and he tells you more than you think he can do, you come to distrust him altogether. It was not so that I felt aboot Wull Morris.

It was a great time when I went off to America at last. My friends made a great to-do aboot my going. There were pipers to play me off—I mind the way they skirled. Verra soft they were playing at the end, ane of my favorite tunes—"Will ye no come back again?" And so I went.

I was a better sailor than I micht ha' thought. I enjoyed the voyage. And I'll ne'er forget my first sicht o' New York. It's e'en more wonderfu' the noo; there's skyscrapers they'd not dared dream of, so high they are, when I was first there. Maybe they've reached the leemit now, but I hae ma doots—I'm never thinking a Yankee has reached a leemit, for I've ma doots that he has ane!

I kenned fine that they'd heard o' me in America. Wull Morris and others had told me that. I knew that there'd be Scots there tae bid me welcome, for the sake of the old country. Scots are clansmen, first and last; they make much of any chance to keep the memory and the spirit of Scotland fresh in a strange land, when they are far frae hame. And so I thought, when I saw land, that I'd be having soon a bit reception frae some fellow Scots, and it was a bonny thing to think upon, sae far frae all I'd known all my life lang.

I was no prepared at a' for what really happened. The Scots were oot— oh, aye, and they had pipers to greet me, and there were auld friends that had settled doon in New York or other parts o' the United States, and had come to meet me. Scots ha' a way o' makin' siller when they get awa' frae Scotland, I'm findin' oot. At hame the competition is fierce, sae there are some puir Scots. But when they gang away they've had such training that no ithers can stand against them, and sae the Scot in a foreign place is like to be amang the leaders.

But it wasna only the Scots turned oot to meet me. There were any number of Americans. And the American reporters! Unless you've come into New York and been met by them you've no idea of what they're like, yon. They made rare sport of me, and I knew they were doing it, though I think they thought, the braw laddies, they were pulling the wool over my een!

There was much that was new for me, and you'll remember I'm a Scot. When I'm travelling a new path, I walk cannily, and see where each foot is going to rest before I set it doon. Sae it was when I came to America. I was anxious to mak' friends in a new land, and I wadna be saying anything to a reporter laddie that could be misunderstood. Sae I asked them a' to let me off, and not mak' me talk till I was able to give a wee bit o' thought to what I had tae say.

They just laughed at one another and at me. And the questions they asked me! They wanted to know what did I think of America? And o' this and o' that that I'd no had the chance tae see. It was a while later before I came to understand that they were joking wi' themselves as well as wi' me. I've learned, since then, that American reporters, and especially those that meet the ships that come in to New York, have had cause to form impressions of their ain of a gude many famous folk that would no be sae flattering to those same folk as what they usually see written aboot themselves.

Some of my best friends in America are those same reporters. They've been good tae me, and I've tried to be fair wi' them. The American press is an institution that seems strange to a Briton, but to an artist it's a blessing. It's thanks to the papers that the people learn sae much aboot an artist in America; it's thanks tae them that they're sae interested in him.

I'm no saying the papers didn't rub my fur the wrang way once or twice; they made mair than they should, I'm thinking, o' the jokes aboot me and the way I'd be carfu' wi' ma siller. But they were aye good natured aboot it. It's a strange thing, that way that folk think I'm sae close wi' my money. I'm canny; I like to think that when I spend my money I get its value in return. But I'm no the only man i' the world feels sae aboot it; that I'm sure of. And I'll no hand oot siller to whoever comes asking. Aye, I'll never do that, and I'd think shame to masel' if I did. The only siller that's gude for a man to have, the only siller that helps him, i' the end, is that which he's worked hard to earn and get.

Oh, gi'e'n a body's sick, or in trouble o' some sair sort, that's different; he deserves help then, and it's nae the same thing. But what should I or any other man gie money to an able bodied laddie that can e'en work for what he needs, the same as you and me? It fashes me to ha' such an one come cadging siller frae me; I'd think wrong to encourage him by gi'e'n it the him.

You maun work i' this world. If your siller comes tae you too easily, you'll gain nae pleasure nor profit frae the spending on't. The things we enjoy the maist are not those that are gi'e'n to us; they're those that, when we look at, mean weeks or months or maybe years of work. When you've to work for what you get you have the double pleasure. You look forward for a lang time, while you're working, to what your work will bring you. And then, in the end, you get it—and you know you're beholden tae no man but yourself for what you have. Is that no a grand feeling?

Aweel, it's no matter. I'm glad for the laddies to hae their fun wi' me. They mean no harm, and they do no harm. But I've been wishfu', sometimes, that the American reporters had a wee bit less imagination. 'Tis a grand thing, imagination; I've got it masel, tae some extent. But those New York reporters—and especially the first ones I met! Man, they put me in the shade altogether!

I'd little to say to them the day I landed; I needed time tae think and assort my impressions. I didna ken my own self just what I was thinking aboot New York and America. And then, I'd made arrangements wi' the editor of one of the great New York papers to write a wee piece for his journal that should be telling his readers hoo I felt. He was to pay me weel for that, and it seemed no more than fair that he should ha' the valuable words of Harry Lauder to himself, since he was willing to pay for them.

But did it mak' a wee bit of difference tae those laddies that I had nought to say to them? That it did—not! I bade them all farewell at my hotel. But the next morning, when the papers were brought to me, they'd all long interviews wi' me. I learned that I thought America was the grandest country I'd ever seen. One said I was thinking of settling doon here, and not going hame to Scotland at a' any more! And another said I'd declared I was sorry I'd not been born in the United States, since, noo, e'en though I was naturalized—as that paper said I meant tae be!—I could no become president of the United States!

Some folk took that seriously—folk at hame, in the main. They've an idea, in America, that English folk and Scots ha' no got a great sense of humor. It's not that we've no got one; it's just that Americans ha' a humor of a different sort. They've a verra keen sense o' the ridiculous, and they're as fond of a joke that's turned against themselves as of one they play upon another pairson. That's a fine trait, and it makes it easy to amuse them in the theatre.

I think I was mair nervous aboot my first appearance in New York than I'd ever been in ma life before. In some ways it was worse than that nicht in the old Gatti's in London. I'd come tae New York wi' a reputation o' sorts, ye ken; I'd brought naethin' o' the sort tae New York.

When an artist comes tae a new country wi' sae much talk aboot him as there was in America concerning me, there's always folk that tak' it as a challenge.

"Eh!" they'll say. "So there's Harry Lauder coming, is there? And he's the funniest wee man in the halls, is he? He'd make a graven image laugh, would he? Well, I'll be seeing! Maybe he can make me laugh— maybe no. We'll just be seeing."

That's human nature. It's natural for people to want to form their own judgments aboot everything. And it's natural, tae, for them tae be almost prejudiced against anyone aboot whom sae much has been said. I realized a' that; I'd ha' felt the same way myself. It meant a great deal, too, the way I went in New York. If I succeeded there I was sure to do well i' the rest of America. But to fail in New York, to lose the stamp of a Broadway approval—that wad be laying too great a handicap altogether upon the rest of my tour.

In London I'd had nothing to lose. Gi'e'n I hadna made my hit that first nicht in the Westminster Bridge Road, no one would have known the difference. But in New York there'd be everyone waiting. The critics would all be there—not just men who write up the music halls, but the regular critics, that attend first nichts at the theatre. It was a different and a mair serious business than anything I'd known in London.

It was a great theatre in which I appeared—one o' the biggest in New York, and the greatest I'd ever played in, I think, up tae that time. And when the nicht came for my first show the hoose was crowded; there was not a seat to be had, e'en frae the speculators.

Weel, there's ane thing I've learned in my time on the stage. You canna treat an audience in any verra special way, just because you're anxious that it shall like you. You maun just do your best, as you've been used to doing it. I had this much in my favor—I was singing auld songs, that I knew weel the way of. And then, tae, many of that audience knew me. There were a gude few Scots amang it; there were American friends I'd made on the other side, when they'd been visiting. And there was another thing I'd no gi'en a thocht, and that was the way sae many o' them knew ma songs frae havin' heard them on the gramaphone.

It wasna till after I'd been in America that I made sae many records, but I'd made enough at lime for some of my songs tae become popular, and so it wasna quite sicca novelty as I'd thought it micht be for them to hear me. Oh, aye, what wi' one thing and another it would have been my ain fault had that audience no liked hearing me sing that nicht.

But I was fairly overwhelmed by what happened when I'd finished my first song. The house rose and roared at me. I'd never seen sic a demonstration. I'd had applause in my time, but nothing like that. They laughed frae the moment I first waggled my kilt at them, before I did more than laugh as I came oot to walk aroond. But there were cheers when I'd done; it was nae just clapping of the hands they gie'd me. It brought the tears to my een to hear them. And I knew then that I'd made a whole new countryful of friends that nicht—for after that I couldna hae doots aboot the way they'd be receiving me elsewhere.

Even sae, the papers surprised me the next morning. They did sae much more than just praise me! They took me seriously—and that was something the writers at hame had never done. They saw what I was aiming at wi' my songs. They understood that I was not just a comedian, not just a "Scotch comic." I maun amuse an audience wi' my songs, but unless I mak' them think, and, whiles, greet a bit, too, I'm no succeeding. There's plenty can sing a comic song as weel as I can. But that's no just the way I think of all my songs. I try to interpret character in them. I study queer folk o' all the sorts I see and know. And, whiles, I think that in ane of my songs I'm doing, on a wee scale, what a gifted author does in a novel of character.

Aweel, it went straight to my heart, the way those critics wrote about me. They were not afraid of lowering themselves by writing seriously about a "mere music hall comedian." Aye, I've had wise gentlemen of the London press speak so of me. They canna understand, yon gentry, why all the fuss is made about Harry Lauder. They're a' for the Art Theatre, and this movement and that. But they're no looking for what's natural and unforced i' the theatre, or they'd be closer to-day to having a national theatre than they'll ever be the gait they're using the noo!

They're verra much afraid of hurting their dignity, or they were, in Britain, before I went to America. I think perhaps it woke them up to read the New York reviews of my appearance. It's a sure thing they've been more respectful tae me ever since. And I dinna just mean that it's to me they're respectful. It's to what I'm trying tae do. I dinna care a bit what a'body says or thinks of me. But I tak' my work seriously. I couldna keep on doing it did I not, and that's what sae many canna understand. They think a man at whom the public maun laugh if he's to rate himsel' a success must always be comical; that he can never do a serious thing. It is a mistaken idea altogether, yon.

I'm thinking Wull Morris must ha' breathed easier, just as did I, the morning after that first nicht show o' mine. He'd been verra sure— but, man, he stood to lose a lot o' siller if he'd found he'd backed the wrang horse! I was glad for his sake as well as my own that he had not.

After the start my first engagement in New York was one long triumph. I could ha' stayed much longer than I did, but there were twa reasons against making any change in the plans that had been arranged. One is that a long tour is easy to throw oot o' gear. Time is allotted long in advance, and for a great many attractions. If one o' them loses it's week, or it's three nichts, or whatever it may be, it's hard to fit it in again. And when a tour's been planned so as to eliminate so much as possible of doubling back in railway travel, everything may be spoiled by being a week or so late in starting it.

Then, there was another thing. I was sure to be coming back to New York again, and it was as weel to leave the city when it was still hard to be buying tickets for my show. That's business; I could see it as readily as could Wull Morris, who was a revelation tae me then as a manager. He's my friend, as well as my manager, the noo, you'll ken; I tak' his advice aboot many and many a thing, and we've never had anything that sounded like even the beginnings of a quarrel.

Sae on I went frae New York. I was amazed at the other cities—Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Chicago, Pittsburgh—in a' o' them the greeting New York had gi'en me was but just duplicated. They couldna mak' enough of me. And everywhere I made new friends, and found new reason to rejoice over having braved the hazardous adventure of an American tour.

Did I tell you how I was warned against crossing the ocean? It was the same as when I'd thought of trying ma luck in London. The same sort of friends flocked about me.

"Why will you be risking all you've won, Harry?" they asked me. "Here in Britain you're safe—your reputation's made, and you're sure of a comfortable living, and more, as long as you care to stay on the stage. There they might not understand you, and you would suffer a great blow to your prestige if you went there and failed."

I didna think that, e'en were I to fail in America, it would prevent me frae coming back to Britain and doing just as well as ever I had. But, then, too, I didna think much o' that idea. Because, you see, I was so sure I was going to succeed, as I had succeeded before against odds and in the face of all the croakers and prophets of misfortune had to say.



CHAPTER XVIII

It was a hard thing for me to get used to thinking o' the great distances of travel in America. In Britain aboot the longest trip one wad be like to make wad be frae London tae Glasga or the other way around. And that's but a matter of a day or a nicht. Wull Morris showed me a route for my tour that meant travelling, often and often, five hundred miles frae ane toon tae the next. I was afraid at first, for it seemed that I'd ha' tae be travelling for months at a time. I'd heard of the hotels in the sma' places, and I knew they couldna be tae good.

It's harder than one wha hasna done it can realize the travel and gie twa shows a day for any length of time. If it was staying always a week or mair in the ane city, it would be better. But in America, for the first time, I had to combine long travelling wi' constant singing. Folks come in frae long distances to a toon when a show they want to see is booked to appear, and it's necessary that there should be a matinee as well as a nicht performance whenever it's at a' possible.

They all told me not to fret; that I didna ken, until I'd seen for myself, how comfortable travel in America could be made. I had my private car—that was a rare thing for me to be thinking of. And, indeed, it was as comfortable as anyone made me think it could be. There was a real bedroom—I never slept in a berth, but in a brass bed, just as saft and comfortable as ever I could ha' known in ma own wee hoose at hame. Then there was a sitting room, as nice and hamely as you please, where I could rest and crack, whiles we were waiting in a station, wi' friends wha came callin'.

I wasna dependent on hotels at all, after the way I'd been led to fear them. It was only in the great cities, where we stayed a week or mair, that I left the car and stopped in a hotel. And even then it was mair because the yards, where the car would wait, would be noisy, and would be far awa' frae the theatre, than because the hotel was mair comfortable, that we abandoned the car.

Our own cook travelled wi' us. I'm a great hand for Scottish cooking. Mrs. Lauder will bake me a scone, noo and then, no matter whaur we are. And the parritch and a' the other Scottish dishes tickle my palate something grand. Still it was a revelation to me, the way that negro cooked for us! Things I'd never heard of he'd be sending to the table each day, and when I'd see him and tell him that I liked something special he'd made, it was a treat to see his white teeth shining oot o' his black face.

I love to sit behind the train, on the observation platform, while I'm travelling through America. It's grand scenery—and there's sae much of it. It's a wondrous sicht to see the sun rise in the desert. It puts me in mind o' the moors at home, wi' the rosy sheen of the dawn on the purple heather, but it's different.

There's no folk i' the world more hospitable than Americans. And there's no folk prouder of their hames, and more devoted to them. That's a thing to warm the cockles of a Scots heart. I like folk who aren't ashamed to let others know the way they feel. An Englishman's likely to think it's indelicate to betray his feelings. We Scots dinna wear our hearts upon our sleeves, precisely, but we do love our hame, and we're aye fond o' talking about it when we're far awa'.

In Canada, especially, I always found Scots everywhere I went. They'd come to the theatre, whiles I was there; nearly every nicht I'd hear the gude Scots talk in my dressing room after my turn. There'd be dinners they'd gie me—luncheons, as a rule, rather, syne my time was ta'en up sae that I couldna be wi' em at the time for the evening meal. Whiles I'd sing a bit sang for them; whiles they'd ask me tae speak to them.

Often there'd be some laddie I'd known when we were boys together; once or twice I'd shake the hand o' one had worked wi' me in the pit. Man, is there anything like coming upon an old friend far frae hame I didna think sae. It's a feeling that you always have, no matter how oft it comes to you. For me, I know weel, it means a lump rising in my throat, and a bit o' moisture that's verra suspicious near my een, so that I maun wink fast, sometimes, that no one else may understand.

I'm a great one for wearing kilts. I like the Scottish dress. It's the warmest, the maist sensible, way of dressing that I ken. I used to have mair colds before I took to wearing kilts than ever I've had since I made a practice of gie'in up my troosers. And there's a freedom aboot a kilt that troosers canna gie ye.

I've made many friends in America, but I'm afraid I've made some enemies, too. For there's a curious trait I've found some Americans have. They've an audacity, when they're the wrang sort, I've never seen equalled in any other land. And they're clever, tae—oh, aye— they're as clever as can be!

More folk tried tae sell me things I didna want on that first tour o' mine. They'd come tae me wi' mining stocks, and tell me how I could become rich overnicht. You'd no be dreaming the ways they'd find of getting a word in my ear. I mind times when men wha wanted to reach me, but couldna get to me when I was off the stage, hired themselves as stage hands that they micht catch me where I could not get away.

Aye, they've reached me in every way. Selling things, books, insurance, pictures; plain begging, as often as not. I've had men drive cabs so they could speak to me; I mind a time when one, who was to drive me frae the car, in the yards, tae the theatre, took me far oot of ma way, and then turned.

"Now then, Harry Lauder!" he said. "Give me the thousand dollars!"

"And what thousand dollars wi' that be, my mannie?" I asked him.

"The thousand I wrote and told you I must have!" he said, as brash as you please.

"Noo, laddie, there's something wrang," I said. "I've had nae letter from you aboot that thousand dollars!"

"It's the mails!" he said, and cursed. "I'm a fule to trust to them. They're always missending letters and delaying them. Still, there's no harm done. I'm telling you now I need a thousand dollars. Have you that much with you?"

"I dinna carrie sae muckle siller wi' me, laddie," I said. I could see he was but a salt yin, and none to be fearing. "I'll gie you a dollar on account."

And, d'ye ken, he was pleased as Punch? It was a siller dollar I gie'd him, for it was awa' oot west this happened, where they dinna have the paper money so much as in the east.

That's a grand country, that western country in America, whichever side of the line you're on, in Canada or in the States. There's land, and there's where real men work upon it. The cities cannot lure them awa'—not yet, at any rate. It's an adventure to work upon one of those great farms. You'll see the wheat stretching awa' further than the een can reach. Whiles there'll be a range, and you can see maybe five thousand head o' cattle that bear a single brand grazing, wi' the cowboys riding aboot here and there.

I've been on a round up in the cattle country in Texas, and that's rare sport. Round up's when they brand the beasties. It seems a cruel thing, maybe, to brand the bit calves the way they do, but it's necessary, and it dosna hurt them sae much as you'd think. But ot's the life that tempts me! It's wonderfu' to lie oot under the stars on the range at nicht, after the day's work is done. Whiles I'd sing a bit sang for the laddies who were my hosts, but oft they'd sing for me instead, and that was a pleasant thing. It made a grand change.

I've aye taken it as a great compliment, and as the finest thing I could think aboot my work, that it's true men like those cowboys, and like the soldiers for whom I sang sae much when I was in France, o' all the armies, who maist like to hear me sing. I've never had audiences that counted for sae much wi' me. Maybe it's because I'm singing, when I sing for them, for the sheer joy of doing it, and not for siller. But I think it's mair than that. I think it's just the sort of men they are I know are listening tae me. And man, when you hear a hundred voices—or five thousand!—rising in a still nicht to join in the chorus of a song of yours its something you canna forget, if you live to any age at a'.

I've had strange accompaniments for my stings, mair than once. Oot west the coyote has played an obligato for me; in France I've had the whustling o' bullets over my head and the cooming of the big guns, like the lowest notes of some great organ. I can always sing, ye ken, wi'oot any accompaniments frae piano or band. 'Deed, and there's one song o' mine I always sing alone. It's "The Wee Hoose Amang the Heather." And every time I appear, I think, there's some one asks for that.

Whiles I think I've sung a song sae often everyone must be tired of it. I'm fond o' that wee song masel', and it was aye John's favorite, among all those in my repertory. But it seems I canna sing it often enough, for more than once, when I've not sung it, the audience hasna let me get awa' without it. I'll ha' gie'n as many encores as I usually do; I'll ha' come back, maybe a score of times, and bowed. But a' over the hoose I'll hear voices rising—Scots voices, as a rule.

"Gie's the wee hoose, Harry," they'll roar. And: "The wee hoose 'mang the heather, Harry," I'll hear frae another part o' the hoose. It's many years since I've no had to sing that song at every performance.

Sometimes I've been surprised at the way my audiences ha' received me. There's toons in America where maist o' the folk will be foreigners— places where great lots o' people from the old countries in Europe ha' settled doon, and kept their ain language and their ain customs. In Minnesota and Wisconsin there'll be whole colonies of Swedes, for example. They're a fine, God fearing folk, and, nae doot, they've a rare sense of humor o' their ain. But the older ones, sometimes, dinna understand English tae well, and I feel, in such a place, as if it was asking a great deal to expect them to turn oot to hear me.

And yet they'll come. I've had some of my biggest audiences in such places, and some of my friendliest. I'll be sure, whiles I'm singing, that they canna understand. The English they micht manage, but when I talk a wee bit o' Scots talk, it's ayant them altogether. But they'll laugh—they'll laugh at the way I walk, I suppose, and at the waggle o' ma kilts. And they'll applaud and ask for mair. I think there's usually a leaven o' Scots in sic a audience; just Scots enough so I'll ha' a friend or twa before I start. And after that a's weel.

It's a great sicht to see the great crowds gather in a wee place that's happened to be chosen for a performance or twa because there's a theatre or a hall that's big enough. They'll come in their motor cars; they'll come driving in behind a team o' horses; aye, and there's some wull come on shanks' mare. And it's a sobering thing tae think they're a' coming, a' those gude folk, tae hear me sing. You canna do ought but tak' yourself seriously when they that work sae hard to earn it spend their siller to hear you.

I think it was in America, oot west, where the stock of the pioneers survives to this day, that I began to realize hoo much humanity counted for i' this world. Yon's the land of the plain man and woman, you'll see. Folk live well there, but they live simply, and I think they're closer, there, to living as God meant man tae do, than they are in the cities. It's easier to live richtly in the country. There's fewer ways to hand to waste time and siller and good intentions.

It was in America I first came sae close to an audience as to hae it up on the stage wi' me. When a hoose is sair crowded there they'll put chairs aroond upon the stage—mair sae as not to disappoint them as may ha' made a lang journey tae get in than for the siller that wad be lost were they turned awa'. And it's a rare thing for an artist to be able tae see sae close the impression that he's making. I'll pick some old fellow, sometimes, that looks as if nothing could mak' him laugh. And I'll mak' him the test. If I canna make him crack a smile before I'm done my heart will be heavy within me, and I'll think the performance has been a failure. But it's seldom indeed that I fail.

There's a thing happened tae me once in America touched me mair than a'most anything I can ca' to mind. It was just two years after my boy John had been killed in France. It had been a hard thing for me to gae back upon the stage. I'd been minded to retire then and rest and nurse my grief. But they'd persuaded me to gae back and finish my engagement wi' a revue in London. And then they'd come tae me and talked o' the value I'd be to the cause o' the allies in America.

When I began my tour it was in the early winter of 1917. America had not come into the war yet, wi' her full strength, but in London they had reason to think she'd be in before long—and gude reason, tae, as it turned oot. There was little that we didna ken, I've been told, aboot the German plans; we'd an intelligence system that was better by far than the sneaking work o' the German spies that helped to mak' the Hun sae hated. And, whiles I canna say this for certain, I'm thinking they were able to send word to Washington frae Downing street that kept President Wilson and his cabinet frae being sair surprised when the Germans instituted the great drive in the spring of 1918 that came sae near to bringing disaster to the Allies.

Weel, this was the way o' it. I'll name no names, but there were those who knew what they were talking of came tae me.

"It's hard, Harry," they said. "But you'll be doing your country a good service if you'll be in America the noo. There's nae telling when we may need all her strength. And when we do it'll be for her government to rouse the country and mak' it realize what it means to be at war wi' the Hun. We think you can do that better than any man we could be sending there—and you can do it best because you'll no be there just for propaganda. Crowds will come to hear you sing, and they'll listen to you if you talk to them after your performance, as they'd no be listening to any other man we might send."

In Washington, when I was there before Christmas, I saw President Wilson, and he was maist cordial and gracious tae me. Yon' a great man, for a' that's said against him, and there was some wise men he had aboot him to help him i' the conduct of the war. Few ken, even the noo, how great a thing America did, and what a part she played in ending the war when it was ended. I'm thinking the way she was making ready saved us many a thousand lives in Britain and in France, for she made the Hun quit sooner than he had a mind to do.

At any rate, they made me see in Washington that they agreed wi' those who'd persuaded me to make that tour of America. They, too, thought that I could be usefu', wi' my speaking, after what I'd seen in France. Maybe, if ye'll ha' heard me then, ye'll ha' thought I just said whatever came into my mind at the moment. But it was no so. The things I said were thought oot in advance; their effect was calculated carefully. It was necessary not to divulge information that micht ha' been of value to the enemy, and there were always new bits of German propoganda that had tae be met and discounted without referring to them directly. So I was always making wee changes, frae day to day. Sometimes, in a special place, there'd be local conditions that needed attention; whiles I could drop a seemingly careless or unstudied suggestion that would gain much more notice than an official bulletin or speech could ha' done.

There's an art that conceals art, I'm told. Maybe it was that I used in my speaking in America during the war. It may be I gave offence sometimes, by the vehemence of my words, but I'm hoping that all true Americans understood that none was meant. I'd have to be a bit harsh, whiles, in a toon that hadna roused itself to the true state of affairs. But what's a wee thing like that between friends and allies?

It's the New Year's day I'm thinking of, though. New Year's is aye a sacred day for a' us Scots. When we're frae hame we dinna lik it; it's a day we'd fain celebrate under our ain rooftree. But for me it was mair so than for maist, because it was on New Year's day I heard o' my boy's death.

Weel, it seemed a hard thing tae ha' the New Year come in whiles I was journeying in a railroad car through the United States. But here's the thing that touched me sae greatly. The time came, and I was alane wi' the wife. Tom Vallance had disappeared. And then I heard the skirl o' the pipes, and into the car the pipers who travelled wi' me came marching. A' the company that was travelling wi' me followed them, and they brocht wee presents for me and for the wife. There were tears in our een, I'm telling you; it was a kindly thought, whoever amang them had it, and ane I'll ne'er forget. And there, in that speeding car, we had a New Year's day celebration that couldna ha' been matched ootside o' Scotland.

But, there, I've aye found folk kindly and thoughtfu' tae me when I've had tae be awa' frae hame on sic a day, And it happens often, for it's just when folk are making holiday that they'll want maist to see and hear me in their theatres, and sae it's richt seldom that I can mak' my way hame for the great days o' the year. But I wull, before sae lang—I'm near ready to keep the promise I've made sae often, and retire. You're no believing I mean that? You've heard the like of that tale before? Aye, I ken that fine. But I mean it!



CHAPTER XIX

I've had much leisure to be thinking of late. A man has time to wonder and to speculate concerning life and what he's seen o' it when he's taking a long ocean voyage. And I've been meditating on some curious contrasts. I was in Australia when I heard of the coming of the war. My boy John was with me, then; he'd come there tae meet his mither and me. He went hame, straight hame; I went to San Francisco.

Noo I'm on ma way hame frae Australia again, and again I've made the lang journey by way of San Francisco and the States. And there's a muckle to think upon in what I've seen. Sad sichts they were, a many of them. In yon time when I was there before the world was a' at peace. Men went aboot their business, you in Australia, underneath the world, wi' no thought of trouble brewing. But other men, in Europe, thousands of miles way, were laying plans that meant death and the loss of hands and een for those braw laddies o' Australia and New Zealand that I saw—those we came to ken sae weel as the gallant Anzacs.

It makes you realize, seeing countries so far awa' frae a' the war, and yet suffering so there from, how dependent we all are upon one another. Distance makes no matter; differences make none. We cannot escape the consequences of what others do. And so, can we no be thinking sometimes, before we act, doing something that we think concerns only ourselves, of all those who micht suffer for what we did?

I maun think of labor when I think of the Anzacs. Yon is a country different frae any I have known. There's no landed aristocracy in the land of the Anzac. Yon's a country where all set out on even terms. That's truer there, by far, than in America, even. It's a young country and a new country, still, but it's grown up fast. It has the strength and the cities of an old country, but it has a freshness of its own.

And there labor rules the roost. It's one of the few places in the world where a government of labor has been instituted. And yet, I'm wondering the noo if those labor leaders in Australia have reckoned on one or twa things I think of? They're a' for the richts of labor—and so am I. I'd be a fine one, with the memory I have of unfairness and exploitation of the miners in the coal pits at Hamilton, did I not agree that the laboring man must be bound together with his fellows to gain justice and fair treatment from his employers.

But there's a richt way and a wrong way to do all things. And there was a wrong way that labor used, sometimes, during the war, to gain its ends. There was sympathy for all that British labor did among laboring men everywhere, I'm told—in Australia, too. But let's bide a wee and see if labor didn't maybe, mak' some mistakes that it may be threatening to mak' again noo that peace has come.

Here's what I'm afraid of. Labor used threats in the war. If the government did not do thus and so there'd be a strike. That was meanin' that guns would be lacking, or shell, or rifles, or hand grenades, or what not in the way of munitions, on the Western front. But the threat was sae vital that it won, tae often I'm no saying it was used every time. Nor am I saying labor did not have a richt to what it asked. It's just this—canna we get alang without making threats, one to the other?

And there were some strikes that had serious consequences. There were strikes that delayed the building of ships, and the making of cannon and shell. And as a result of them men died, in France, and in Gallipoli, and in other places, who need no have died. They were laddies who'd dropped all, who'd gi'en up all that was dear to them, all comfort and safety, when the country called.

They had nae voice in the matters that were in dispute. None thought, when sic a strike was called, of hoo those laddies in the trenches wad be affected. That's what I canna forgie. That's what makes me wonder why the Anzacs, when they reach home, don't have a word to say themselves aboot the troubles that the union leaders would seem to be gaein' to bring aboot.

We're in a ficht still, even though peace has come. We're in a ficht wi' poverty, and disease, and all the other menaces that still threaten our civilization. We'll beat them, as we ha' beaten the other enemies. But we'll no beat them by quarrelling amang oorselves, any more than we'd ever have beaten the Hun if France and Britain had stopped the war, every sae often, to hae oot an argument o' their own. We had differences with our gude friends the French, fraw time to time. Sae did the Americans, and whiles we British and our American cousins got upon ane anither's nerves. But there was never real trouble or difficulty, as the result and the winning of the war have shown.

Do you ken what it is we've a' got to think of the noo? It's production. We must produce more than we ha' ever done before. It's no a steady raise in wages that will help. Every time wages gang up a shilling or twa, everything else is raised in proportion. The workingman maun mak' more money; everyone understands that. But the only way he can safely get more siller is to earn more—to increase production as fast as he knows how.

It's the only way oot—and it's true o' both Britain and America. The more we mak' the more we'll sell. There's a market the noo for all we English speaking folk can produce. Germany is barred, for a while at least; France, using her best efforts and brains to get back upon her puir, bruised feet, canna gae in avily for manufactures for a while yet. We, in Britain, have only just begun to realize that the war is over. It took us a long time to understand what we were up against at the beginning, and what sort of an effort we maun mak' if we were to win the war.

And then, before we'd done, we were doing things we'd never ha dreamed it was possible for us tae do before the need was upon us. We in Britain had to do without things we'd regarded as necessities and we throve without them. For the sake of the wee bairns we went without milk for our tea and coffee, and scarce minded it. Aye, in a thousand little ways that had not seemed to us to matter at all we were deprived and harried and hounded.

Noo, what I'm thinking sae often is just this. We had a great problem to meet in the winning of the war. We solved it, though it was greater than any of those we were wont to call insoluble. Are there no problems left? There's the slum. There's the sort of poverty that afflicts a man who's willing tae work and can nicht find work enough tae do tae keep himself and his family alive and clad. There's all sorts of preventible disease. We used to shrug our shoulders and speak of such things as the act of God. But I'll no believe they're acts of God. He doesna do things in such a fashion. They're acts of man, and it's for man to mak' them richt and end what's wrong wi' the world he dwells in.

They used to shrug their shoulders in Russia, did those who had enough to eat and a warm, decent hoose tae live in. They'd hear of the sufferings of the puir, and they'd talk of the act of God, and how he'd ordered it that i' this world there maun always be some suffering.

And see what's come o' that there! The wrong sort of man has set to work to mak' a wrong thing richt, and he's made it worse than it ever was. But how was it he had the chance to sway the puir ignorant bodies in Russia? How was it that those who kenned a better way were not at work long agane? Ha' they anyone but themselves to blame that Trotzky and the others had the chance to persuade the Russian people tae let them ha' power for a little while'?

Oh, we'll no come to anything like that in Britain and America. I've sma' patience wi' those that talk as if the Bolsheviki would be ruling us come the morrow. We're no that sort o' folk, we Britons and Americans. We've settled our troubles our ain way these twa thousand years, and we'll e'en do sae again. But we maun recognize that there are things we maun do tae mak' the lot of the man that's underneath a happier and a better one.

He maun help, tae. He maun realize that there's a chance for him. I'm haulding mysel' as one proof of that—it's why I've told you sae muckle in this book of myself and the way that I've come frae the pit tae the success and the comfort that I ken the noo.

I had to learn, lang agane, that my business was not only mine. Maybe you'll think that I'm less concerned with others and their affairs than maist folk, and maybe that's true, tae. But I. canna forget others, gi'en I would. When I'm singing I maun have a theatre i' which to appear. And I canna fill that always by mysel'. I maun gae frae place to place, and in the weeks of the year when I'm no appearing there maun be others, else the theatre will no mak' siller enough for its owners to keep it open.

And then, let's gie a thought to just the matter of my performance. There must be an orchestra. It maun play wi' me; it maun be able to accompany me. An orchestra, if it is no richt, can mak' my best song sound foolish and like the singing o' some one who dinna ken ane note of music frae the next. So I'm dependent on the musicians—and they on me. And then there maun be stage hands, to set the scenes. Folk wouldna like it if I sang in a theatre wi'oot scenery. There maun be those that sell tickets, and tak' them at the doors, and ushers to show the folk their seats.

And e'en before a'body comes tae the hoose to pay his siller for a ticket there's others I'm dependent upon. How do they ken I'm in the toon at a'? They've read it in the papers, maybe—and there's reporters and printers I've tae thank. Or they've seen my name and my picture on a hoarding, and I've to think o' the men who made the lithograph sheets, and the billposters who put them up. Sae here's Harry Lauder and a' the folk he maun have tae help him mak' a living and earn his bit siller! More than you'd thought' Aye, and more than I'd thought, sometimes.

There's a michty few folk i' this world who can say they're no dependant upon others in some measure. I ken o' none, myself. It's a fine thing to mind one's ain business, but if one gies the matter thought one will find, I think, that a man's business spreads oot more than maist folk reckon it does.

Here, again. In the States there's been trouble about the men that work on the railways. Can I say it's no my business? Is it no? Suppose they gae oot on strike? How am I to mak' my trips frae one toon the the next? And should I no be finding oot, if there's like that threatening to my business, where the richt lies? You will be finding it's sae, too, in your affairs; there's little can come that willna affect you, soon or late.

We maun all stand together, especially we plain men and women. It was sae that we won the war—and it is sae that we can win the peace noo that it's come again, and mak' it a peace sae gude for a' the world that it can never be broken again by war. There'd be no wars i' the world if peace were sae gude that all men were content. It's discontented men who stir up trouble in the world, and sae mak' wars possible.

We talk much, in these days, of classes. There's a phrase it sickens me tae hear—class consciousness. It's ane way of setting the man who works wi' his hands against him who works wi' his brain. It's no the way a man works that ought to count—it's that he works at all. Both sorts of work are needful; we canna get along without either sort.

Is no humanity a greater thing than any class? We are all human. We maun all be born, and we maun all die in the end. That much we ken, and there's nae sae much more we can be siccar of. And I've often thought that the trouble with most of our hatreds an' our envy and malice is that folk do not know one another well enough. There's fewer quarrels among folk that speak the same tongue. Britain and America dwelt at peace for mair than a hundred years before they took the field together against a common enemy. America and Canada stand side by side—a great strong nation and a small one. There's no fort between them; there are no fichting ships on the great lakes, ready to loose death and destruction.

It's easier to have a good understanding when different peoples speak the same language. But there's a hint o' the way things must be done, I'm thinking, in the future. Britain and France used tae have their quarrels. They spoke different tongues. But gradually they built up a gude understanding of one another, and where's the man in either country the noo that wadna laugh at you if you said there was danger they micht gae tae war?

It's harder, it may be, to promote a gude understanding when there's a different language for a barrier. But walls can be climbed, and there's more than the ane way of passing them. We've had a great lesson in that respect in the war. It's the first time that ever a coalition of nations held together. Germany and Austria spoke one language. But we others, with a dozen tongues or mair to separate us, were forged into one mighty confederation by our peril and our consciousness of richt, and we beat doon that barrier of various languages, sae that it had nae existence.

And it's not only foreign peoples that speak a different tongue at times. Whiles you'll find folk of the same family, the same race, the same country, who gie the same words different meanings, and grow confused and angry for that reason. There's a way they can overcome that, and reach an understanding. It's by getting together and talking oot all that confuses and angers them. Speech is a great solvent if a man's disposed any way at all to be reasonable, and I've found, as I've gone about the world, that most men want to be reasonable.

They'll call me an optimist, maybe. I'll no be ashamed of that title. There was a saying I've heard in America that taught me a lot. They've a wee cake there they call a doughnut—awfu' gude eating, though no quite sae gude as Mrs. Lauder's scones. There's round hole in the middle of a doughnut, always. And the Americans have a way of saying: "The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist sees the hole." It's a wise crack, you, and it tells you a good deal, if you'll apply it.

There's another way we maun be thinking. We've spent a deal of blood and siller in these last years. We maun e'en have something to show for all we've spent. For a muckle o' the siller we've spent we've just borrowed and left for our bairns and their bairns to pay when the time comes. And we maun leave the world better for those that are coming, or they'll be saying it's but a puir bargain we've made for them, and what we bought wasna worth the price.



CHAPTER XX

There's no sadder sicht my een have ever seen than that of the maimed and wounded laddies that ha' come hame frae this war that is just over. I ken that there's been a deal of talk aboot what we maun do for them that ha' done sae much for us. But I'm thinking we can never think too often of those laddies, nor mak' too many plans to mak' life easier for them. They didna think before they went and suffered. They couldna calculate. Jock could not stand, before the zero hour came in the trenches, and talk' wi' his mate.

He'd not be saying: "Sandy, man, we're going to attack in twa-three meenits. Maybe I'll lose a hand, Sandy, or a leg. Maybe it'll be you'll be hit. What'll we be doing then? Let's mak' our plans the noo. How'll we be getting on without our legs or our arms or if we should be blind?"

No, it was not in such fashion that the laddies who did the fichting thought or talked wi' one another. They'd no time, for the one thing. And for another, I think they trusted us.

Weel, each government has worked out its own way of taking care of the men who suffered. They're gude plans, the maist of them. Governments have shown more intelligence, more sympathy, more good judgment, than ever before in handling such matters. That's true in America as well as in Britain. It's so devised that a helpless man will be taken care of a' his life lang, and not feel that he's receiving any charity. It's nae more than richt that it should be so; it would be a black shame, indeed, if it were otherwise. But still there's more tae be done, and it's for you and me and all the rest of us that didna suffer sae to do it.

There's many things a laddie that's been sair wounded needs and wants when he comes hame. Until he's sure of his food and his roof, and of the care of those dependent on him, if such there be, he canna think of anything else. And those things, as is richt and proper, his country will take in its charge.

But after that what he wants maist is tae know that he's no going to be helpless all his days. He wants to feel that he's some use in the world. Unless he can feel sae, he'd raither ha' stayed in a grave in France, alongside the thousands of others who have stayed there. It's an awfu' thing to be a laddie, wi' maist of the years of your life still before you to be lived, and to be thinking you micht better be dead.