time
and anither in all these nearly thirty years I've been upon the stage.
Else I'd be tryin' it, for the gude fun it wad be.

Anyway, every nicht after that the audience wanted its wee drappie o'
Scotch, and got it, in good measure, for I love to sing the Scottish
songs. And when the week was at an end I was promptly re-engaged for a
return visit the next season, at the biggest salary that had yet been
offered to me. I was a prood man the day; I felt it was a great thing
that had come to me, there on the banks o' the Mersey, sae far frae
hame and a', in the England they'd a' tauld me was hae nane o' me and
ma sangs!

And that week was a turning point in ma life, tae. It chanced that,
what wi' ane thing and anither, I was free for the next twa-three
weeks. I'd plenty of engagements I could get, ye'll ken, but I'd not
closed ma time yet wi' anyone. Some plans I'd had had been changed. So
there I was. I could gang hame, and write a letter or twa, and be off
in a day or so, singing again in the same auld way. Or--I could do
what a' my friends tauld me was madness and worse to attempt. What did
I do? I bocht a ticket for London!

CHAPTER X

There was method in my madness, tho', ye'll ken. Here was I, nearer far
to London, in Birkenhead than I was in Glasga. Gi'en I was gae'in
there some time, I could save my siller by going then. So off I went--
resolved to go and look for opportunity where opportunity lived.

Ye'll ken I could see London was no comin' after me--didna like the
long journey by train, maybe. So I was like Mahomet when the mountain
wouldna gang to him. I needed London mair then than London needed me,
and 'twas no for me to be prood and sit twiddlin' my thumbs till times
changed.

I was nervous, I'll admit, when I reached the great toon. I was wrong
to lash mysel', maybe, but it means a great deal to an artist to ha'
the stamp o' London's approval upon him. 'Tis like the hall mark on a
bit o' siller plate. Still and a' I could no see hoo they made oot I
was sae foolish to be tryin' for London. Mebbe they were richt who
said I could get no opening in a London hall. Mebbe the ithers were
richt, too, who said that if I did the audience would howl me down and
they'd ring doon the curtain on me. I didna believe that last, though,
I'm tellin' ye--I was sure that I'd be as well received in London as I
had been in Birkenhead, could I but mak' a manager risk giving me a
turn.

Still I was nervous. The wa