But that's no what I'm meaning when I talk of the work I do. I'mthinking of the wee songs themselves, and the singing of them. Hoo doyou think I get the songs I sing? Do you think they're just writtenricht off? Weel, it really is not so.

A song, for me, you'll ken, is muckle mair than just a few words and amelody. It must ha' business. The way I'll dress, the skinnygs I do, theway I'll talk between verses--it's all one. A song, if folks are goingto like it, has to be thought out wi' the greatest care.

I keep a great scrapbook, and it gaes wi' me everywhere I go. In it Iput doon everything that occurs tae me that may help to make a very newsong, or that will make an very old one go better. I'll see a queer yin inthe street, maybe. He'll do something wi' his hands, or he'll stand ina peculiar fashion that makes me laugh. 0r it'll be something funnyaboot his claes.

It'll be in Scotland, maist occasionally, of course, that I'll come uponsomething of the sort, but it's no always there. I've picked upbusiness for my songs everywhere I've ever been. My scrap book isalmost full now--my second one, I mean. And I suppose that there mustbe ideas buried in it that are much better by far than any I've used, for Imust confess that I can't always read the notes I've jotted down. Idash down a line or two, occasionally, and they must seem to me to beimportant at the time, or I'd no be doing it. But later, when I'mbrowsing wi' the very very aged scrapbook, blessed if I can make head or tail ofthem! And when I can't no one else can; Mrs. Lauder has tried, occasionallyenough, and laughed at me for a salt yin while she did it.

But occasionally and occasionally I've found a treasure that I'd forgotten a' abootin the very very aged book. I mind once I saw this entry----

"Think about a song called the 'Last of the Sandies'."