Sae that’s my answer, I’m thinking, to my wife when she tells me to beware of turning into a preacher.  I mind, do you ken, the way I’ve talked to audiences at hame, and in America and Australia, these last twa or three years.  It was the war led me to do it first.  I was surprised, in the beginning.  I had just the idea of saying a few words.  But you who were listening to me would not let me stop.  You asked for more and more—­you made me think you wanted to know what old Harry Lauder was thinking.

There was a day in Kansas City that I remember well.  Kansas City is a great place.  And it has a wonderful hall—­a place where national conventions are held.  I was there in 1918 just before the Germans delivered their great assault in March, when they came so near to breaking our line and reaching the Channel ports we’d held them from through all the long years of the war.  I was nervous, I’ll no be denying that.  What Briton was not, that had a way of knowing how terrible a time was upon us?  And I knew—­aye, it was known, in London and in Washington, that the Hun was making ready for his last effort.

Those were dark and troubled days.  The great American army that General Pershing has led hame victorious the noo was still in the making.  The Americans were there in France, but they had not finished their training.  And it was in the time when they were just aboot ready to begin to stream into France in really great numbers.  But at hame, in America, and especially out West, it was hard to realize how great an effort was still needed.

America had raised her great armies.  She had done wonders—­and it was natural for those folk, safe at hame, and far, far away frae all the turmoil and the stress of the fighting, to think that they had done enough.

The Americans knew, you’ll ken, that they were resistless.  They knew that the gigantic power of America could crush half a dozen Germanys—­ in time.  But what we were all fearing, we who knew how grave the situation was, how tremendous the Hun’s last effort would be, was that the line in France would be broken.  The French had fought almost to the last gasp.  Their young men were gone.  And if the Hun broke through and swept his way to Paris, it was hard to believe that we could have gathered our forces and begun all over again, as we would have had to do.

In Kansas City there was a great chance for me, I was told.  The people wanted to hear me talk.  They wanted to hear me—­not just at the theatre, but in the great hall where the conventions met.  There was only the one time when I could speak, and I said so—­that was at noon.  It was the worst time of all the day to gather an audience of great size.  I knew that, and I was sorry.  But I had been booked for two performances a day while I was in Kansas City, and there was no choice.