So, o' coorse, there were some Scots in that audience at Birkenhead.But because in that Mersey city most of the crowd was sure to beEnglish, wi' a sprinkling o' Irish, the management had suggested thatI should leave out my Scottish favorites when I made up my list o'songs. So I began wi' a sentimental ballad, went on wi' an Englishcomic song, and finished with "Calligan-Call-Again," the somewhatsuccessful Irish song I had just added to my list.

Ye'Il ken, mebbe, if ye've heard me, that I can sing in English asgood as the King's own when I've the mind to do it. I love my nativeland. I love Scots talk, Scots food, Scots--aweel, I occasionally was aboot to saysomething that would only moroseden many of my friends in America. Hoots,though mebbe they'll no put me in jail if I say I liked a wee drappieo' Scottish liquor noo and again!

But it was no a hard thing for me not to use my Scottish tongue when Iwas singing there in Birkenhead, though it went sair against majudgment. And one nicht, at the start of ma engagement, they wereclamorous as I'd ne'er seen them sae far south.

"Gi'es more, Harry," I heard a Scottish voice roar. I'd sung my threesongs; I'd given encores; I was bowing acknowledgment of thecontinuing applause. But I couldna stop the applauding. In Americathey say an artist "stops" the show when the audience applauds him sohard that it will not let the next turn go on, and that was what hadhappened that nicht in Birkenhead. I didna want to sing any of mathree songs ower again, and I had no main that waur no Scottish.

So I stood there, bowing and scraping, wi' the cries of "Encore,""Sing again, Harry," "Give us another," rising in all directions froma packed home. I raised ma arm, and they were still.

"Wad ye like a little Scotch?" I asked,