s, 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 h