“I’m hard up just now, Harry,” he said, “and you know how fond I’ve always been of you.  So you can have this one outright for five shillings, cash down.”

D’ye ken, I thought his persistence deserved a reward of some sort, sae I sent him the five shillings, and put his song in the fire.  I rather thought I was a fool tae do sae, because I expected he’d be bombarding me wi’ songs after that bit of encouragement.  But it was not so; I’m thankfu’ to say I’ve never heard of him or his songs frae that day tae this.

I’ve had many a kind word said tae me aboot my songs and the way I sing them.  But the kindest words have aye been for the music.  And it’s true that it’s the lilt of a melody that makes folk remember a song.  That’s what catches the ear and stays wi’ those who have heard a song sung.

It would be wrong for me to say I’m no proud of the melodies that I have introduced with the songs I’ve sung.  I have never had a music lesson in my life.  I can sit doon, the noo, at a piano, and pick out a harmony, but that’s the very limit of my powers wi’ any instrument.  But ever since I can remember anything I have aye been humming at some lilt or another, and it’s been, for the maist part, airs o’ my ain that I’ve hummed.  So I think I’ve a richt to be proud of having invented melodies that have been sung all over the world, considering how I had no musical education at a’.

Certainly it’s the melody that has muckle tae do wi’ the success of any song.  Words that just aren’t quite richt will be soon overlooked if the melody is one o’ the sort the boys in the gallery pick up and whustle as they gae oot.

I’m never happy, when a gude verse comes tae me, till I’ve wedded a melody tae the words.  When the idea’s come tae me I’ll sit doon at the piano and strum it ower and ower again, till I maun mak’ everyone else i’ the hoose tired.  ’Deed, and I’ve been asked, mair than once, tae gie the hoose a little peace.

I dinna arrange my songs, I needn’t say, having no knowledge of the principles.  But always, after a song’s accompaniment has been arranged for the orchestra, I’ll listen carefully at a rehearsal, and often I can pick out weak spots and mak’ suggestions that seem to work an improvement.  I’ve a lot of trouble, sometimes, wi’ the players, till they get sae that they ken the way I like my accompaniment tae be.  But after that we aye get alang fine together, the orchestra and me.

CHAPTER XXII

I’ve talked a muckle i’ this book aboot what I think.  Do you know why?  It’s because I’m a plain man, and I think the way plain men think all ower this world.  It was the war taught me that I could talk to folk as well as sing tae them.  If I’ve talked tae much in this book you maun forgie me—­and you maun think that it’s e’en yor ain fault, in a way.

During the war, whiles I’d speak aboot this or that after my show, people paid an attention tae me that wad have been flattering if I hadn’t known sae well that it was no to me they were listening.  It wasna old Harry Lauder who interested them—­it was what he had to tell them.  It was a great thing to think that folk would tak’ me seriously.  I’ve been amusing people for these many years.  It seemed presumptuous, at first, when I set out to talk to them of other and more serious things.