there----"

Weel, I ken that that's nae sae. I'd gie a' the world tae ha' my ain
laddie back, no matter hoo sair he'd been hurt. And there's never a
faither nor a mither but wad feel the same way--aye, I'm sure o' that.
Sae let us a' get together and make sure that there's never a look in
our een or a shrinking that can gie' any o' these laddies, whether
they're our kin or no, whether we saw them before, the feeling that
there's any difference in our eyes between them and ourselves.

The greatest suffering any man's done that's been hurt is in his
spirit, in his mind--not in his body. Bodily pain passes and is
forgotten. But the wounds of the human spirit lie deep, and it takes
them a lang time tae heal. They're easily reopened, tae; a careless
word, a glance, and a' a man has gone through is brought back to his
memory, when, maybe, he'd been forgetting. I've seen it happen too
oft.

CHAPTER XXI

I've said sae muckle aboot myself in this book that I'm a wee bit
reluctant tae say mair. But still, there's a thing I've thought about
a good deal of late, what wi' all this talk of hoo easy some folk have
it, and how hard others must work. I think there's no one makes a
success of any sort wi'oot hard work--and wi'oot keeping up hard work,
what's mair. I ken that's so of all the successful men I've ever
known, all over the world. They work harder than maist folk will ever
realize, and it's just why they're where they are.

Noawadays it's almost fashionable to think that any man that's got
mair than others has something wrong about him. I know folks are
always saying to me that I'm sae lucky; that all I have tae do is to
sing twa-three songs in an evening and gae my ain gait the rest of my
time. If they but knew the way I'm working!

Noo, I'd no be having anyone think I'm complaining. I love my work.
It's what I'd rather do, till I retire and tak' the rest I feel I've
earned, than any work i' a' the world. It's brought me happiness, my
work has, and friends, and my share o' siller. But--it's _work_.

It's always been work. It's work to-day. It'll be work till I'm ready
to stop doing it altogether. And, because, after all, a man knows more
of his own work than of any other man's, I think I'll tell you just
hoo I do work, and hoo much of my time it takes beside the hour or two
I'll be in the theatre during a performance.

Weel, to begin with, there's the travelling. I travel in great
comfort. But I dinna care ho