thought of every
thing, and it can do no harm to try. If things don't go well, ye can
always go back to the pit and mak' a living."

That was so, ye ken. I had my trade to fall back upon. So I read all
the advertisements, and at last I saw one put in by the manager of a
concert party that was about to mak' a Scottish tour. He wanted a
comic, and, after we'd exchanged two or three letters we had an
interview. I sang some songs for him, and he engaged me, at thirty-
five shillings a week--about eight dollars, in American money--a
little more.

That seemed like a great sum to me in those days. It was no so bad.
Money went farther then, and in Scotland especially, than it does the
noo! And for me it was a fortune. I'd been doing well, in the mine, if
I earned fifteen in a week. And this was for doing what I would rather
do than anything in the wide, wide world! No wonder I went back to
Hamilton and hugged my wife till she thought I'd gone crazy.

I had been engaged as a comic singer, but I had to do much more than
sing on that tour, which was to last fourteen weeks--it started, I
mind, at Beith, in Ayrshire. First, when we arrived in a town, I had
to see that all the trunks and bags were taken from the station to the
hall. Then I would set out with a pile of leaflets, describing the
entertainment, and distribute them where it seemed to me they would do
the most good in drawing a crowd. That was my morning's work.

In the afternoon I was a stage carpenter, and devoted myself to seeing
that every thing at the hall was ready for the performance in the
evening. Sometimes that was easy; sometimes, in badly equipped halls,
the task called for more ingenuity than I had ever before supposed
that I possessed. But there was no rest for me, even then; I had to be
back at the hall after tea and check up part of the house. And then
all I had to do was what I had at first fondly supposed I had been
engaged to do--sing my songs! I sang six songs regularly every night,
and if the audience was good to me and liberal in its applause I threw
in two or three encores.

I had never been so happy in my life. I had always been a great yin
for the open air and the sunshine, and here, for years, I had spent
all my days underground. I welcomed the work that went with the
engagement, for it kept me much out of doors, and even when I was busy
in the halls, it was no so bad--I could see the sunlight through the
windows, at any rate. And then I cou