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