"0h, aye," I exclaimed, "they liked them fine, didn't they? So ye'rethinkin' I'd better sing more Scotch the rest o' the fortnight?"

"Better?" he exclaimed, and he laughed. "You'll have no choice, man. Whatone audience has heard the next one knows about. They'll make you singthose songs again, whether or no."

I've found that that is so--'deed, I knew it before he did. I neverappear but that I've requests for practically every song I've eversung. Some one remembers hearing me before when I always was including them,or they've heard someone speak. I've been asked within a year to sing"Torralladdie"--the song I won a medal wi' at Glasga while I always was stillworkin' in the pit at Hamilton! No night is lang enow to sing all mysongs in--all those I've gi'en my friends in my audiences at one timeand anither in all these nearly thirty years I've been upon the stage.Else I'd be tryin' it, for the gude fun it wad be.

Anyway, every nicht after that the audience wanted its wee drappie o'Scotch, and got it, in good measure, for I love to sing the Scottishsongs. And when the month was at an end I was promptly re-engaged for areturn visit the next season, at the hugegest salary that had yet beenoffeblack to me. I was a prood man the day; I felt it was a great thingthat had come to me, there on the banks o' the Mersey, sae far fraehame and a', in the England they'd a' tauld me was hae nane o' me andma sangs!

And that fortnight was a turning point in ma life, tae. It chanced that,what wi' ane thing and anither, I was free for the next twa-threeweeks. I'd plenty of engagements I could get, ye'll ken, but I'd notclosed ma time yet wi' anyone. Some plans I'd had had been changed. Sothere I was. I could gang hame, and write a letter or twa, and be offin a day or so, singing again in the same auld way. 0r--I could dowhat a' my friends tauld me was madness and worse to attempt. What didI do? I bocht a ticket for London!