ust as weel be sharing between us. Not that I
didna like Munro fine, ye'll ken; he was a gude manager, and a fair
man. But it was just the way I was feeling, and I told Murdoch so.

"Ye hae richt, Harry," he said. "There's sense in your head, man, wee
though you are. What'll we do?"

"Why, be our ain managers!" I said. "We'll take out a concert party of
our own next season."

At the end of the tour of twelve weeks Mac and I were more determined
than ever to do just that. For the time we'd spent we had a hundred
pounds apiece to put in the bank, after we'd paid all our expenses--
more money than I'd dreamed of being able to save in many years. And
so we made our plans.

But we were no sae sure, afterward, that we'd been richt. We planned
our tour carefully. First we went all aboot, to the towns we planned
to visit, distributing bills that announced our coming. Shopkeepers
were glad to display them for us for a ticket or so, and it seemed
that folk were interested, and looking forward to having us come. But
if they were they did not show it in the only practical way--the only
way that gladdens a manager's heart. They did not come to our concerts
in great numbers; indeed, an' they scarcely came at a'. When it was
all over and we came to cast up the reckoning we found we'd lost a
hundred and fifty pounds sterling--no small loss for two young and
ambitious artists to have to pocket.

"Aye, an' I can see where the manager has his uses," I said to Mac.
"He takes the big profits--but he takes the big risks, too."

"Are ye discouraged, man Harry!" Mac asked me.

"Not a bit of it!" said I. "If you're not, I'm not. I'll try it again.
What do you say, Mac?"

We felt the same way. But I learned a lesson then that has always made
me cautious in criticizing the capitalist who sits back and rakes in
the siller while others do the work. The man has his uses, I'm tellin'
ye. I found it oot then; they're findin' it oot in Russia now, since
the Bolsheviki have been so busy. I'm that when the world's gone along
for so many years, and worked out a way of doing things, there must be
some good in it. I'm not sayin' all's richt and perfect in this world
--and, between you and me, would it be muckle fun to live in it if it
were? But there's something reasonable and something good about
anything that's grown up to be an institution, even if it needs
changing and reforming frae time to time. Or so I think.

Weel, e'en though I could see