For me that first nicht at Gatti’s old hall in the Westminster Bridge road seems like a magic memory, even the noo.  I’m sorry the wife was no wi’ me; had I been able to be sure o’ getting the show Tom Tinsley gied me I’d ha’ had her doon.  As it was it wad ha’ seemed like tempting Providence, and I’ve never been any hand tae do that.  I’m no superstitious, exactly—­certainly I’m no sae for a Scot.  But I dinna believe it’s a wise thing tae gave oot o’ the way and look for trouble.  I’ll no walk under a ladder if I can help it, I’ll tell ye, if ye ask me why, that I avoid a ladder because I’ve heard o’ painters dropping paint and costin’ them that was beneath the price o’ the cleaning of their claes, and ye can believe that or no, as ye’ve a mind!

Ye’ve heard o’ men who went to bed themselves at nicht and woke up famous.  Weel, it was no like that, precisely, wi’ me after the nicht at Gatti’s.  I was no famous i’ the morn.  The papers had nowt to say o’ me; they’d not known Mr. Harry Lauder was to mak’ his first appearance in the metropolis.  And, e’en had they known, I’m no thinking they’d ha’ sent anyone to write me up.  That was tae come to me later on.  Aye, I’ve had my share of write-ups in the press; I’d had them then, in the provincial papers.  But London was anither matter.

Still, there were those who knew that a new Scotch comic had made an audience like him.  It’s a strange thing how word o’ a new turn flies aboot amang those regulars of a hall’s audiences.  The second nicht they were waiting for my turn, and I got a rare hand when I stepped oot upon the stage—­the nicht before there’d been dead silence i’ the hoose.  Aye, the second nicht was worse than the first.  The first nicht success micht ha’ been an accident; the second aye tells the tale.  It’s so wi’ a play.  I’ve friends who write plays, and they say the same thing—­they aye wait till the second nicht before they cheer, no matter how grand a success they think they ha’ the first nicht, and hoo many times they ha’ to step oot before the curtain and bow, and how many times they’re called upon for a speech.

So when the second nicht they made me gie e’en more encores than the first I began to be fair sure.  And the word had spread, I learned, to the managers o’ other halls; twa-three of them were aboot to hear me.  My agent had seen to that; he was glad enough to promise me all the London engagements I wanted noo that I’d broken the ice for masel’!  I didna blame him for havin’ been dootfu’.  He knew his business, and it would ha’ been strange had he ta’en me at my word when I told him I could succeed where others had failed that had come wi’ reputations better than my own.

I think I’d never quite believed, before, the tales I’d heard of the great sums the famous London artists got.  It took the figures I saw on the contracts I was soon being asked to sign for appearances at the Pavilion and the Tivoli and all the other famous music halls to make me realize that all I’d heard was true.  They promised me more for second appearances, and my agent advised me against making any long term engagements then.