And, noo, I’ll be asking you—­why should they come tae me?  Because I’m before the public—­because they think they know I ha’ the siller?  Do they nae think I’ve friends and relatives o’ my ain that ha’ the first call upon me?  Wad they, had they the chance, help every stranger that came tae them and asked?  Hoo comes it folk can lose their self-respect sae?

There’s folk, I’ve seen them a’ ma life, who put sae muckle effort into trying to get something for nowt that they ha’ no time or leisure to work.  They’re aye sae busy writin’ begging letters or working it aroond sae as to get to see a man or a woman they ken has mair siller than he or she needs that they ha’ nae the time to mak’ any effort by their ain selves.  Wad they but put half the cleverness into honest toil that they do into writin’ me a letter or speerin’ a tale o’ was to wring my heart, they could earn a’ the siller they micht need for themselves.

In ma time I’ve helped many a yin.  And whiles I’ve been sorry, I’ve been impressed by an honest tale o’ sorrow and distress.  I’ve gi’en its teller what he asked, or what I thocht he needed.  And I’ve seen the effect upon him.  I’ve seen hoo he’s thocht, after that, that there was aye the sure way to fill his needs, wi’oot effort or labor.

’T’is a curious thing hoo such things hang aboot the stage.  They’re aye an open handed lot, the folks o’ the stage.  They help one another freely.  They’re always the first to gie their services for a benefit when there’s a disaster or a visitation upon a community.  They’ll earn their money and gie it awa’ to them that’s in distress.  Yet there’s few to help them, save themselves, when trouble comes to them.

There’s another curious thing I’ve foond.  And that’s the way that many a man wull go tae ony lengths to get a free pass for the show.  He’ll come tae me.  He’ll be wanting tae tak’ me to dinner, he’ll ask me and the wife to ride in a motor, he’ll do ought that comes into his head—­ and a’ that he may be able to look to me for a free ticket for the playhoose!  He’ll be seekin’ to spend ten times what the tickets wad cost him that he may get them for nothing.  I canna understand that in a man wi’ sense enough to mak’ a success in business, yet every actor kens weel that it’s sae.

What many a man calls meanness I call prudence.  I think if we talked more o’ that virtue, prudence, and less o’ that vice, meanness—­for I’m as sure as you can be that meanness is a vice—­we’d come nearer to the truth o’ this matter, mayhap.

Tak’ a savage, noo.  He’ll no be mean or savin’:  He’ll no be prudent, either.  He lives frae hand tae mooth.  When mankind became a bit more prudent, when man wanted to know, any day, where the next day’s living was to come frae, then civilization began, and wi’ it what many miscall meanness.  Man wad be laying aside some o’ the food frae a day o’ plenty against the time o’ famine.  Why, all literature is fu’ o’ tales o’ such things.  We all heard the yarn o’ the grasshopper and the ant at our mither’s knee.  Some o’ us ha’ ta’en profit from the same; some ha’ nicht.  That’s the differ between the prudent man and the reckless yin.  And the prudent man can afford to laugh when the ither calls him mean.  Or sae I’ll gae on thinkin’ till I’m proved wrong, at any rate.