Even sae, the papers surprised me the next morning.  They did sae much more than just praise me!  They took me seriously—­and that was something the writers at hame had never done.  They saw what I was aiming at wi’ my songs.  They understood that I was not just a comedian, not just a “Scotch comic.”  I maun amuse an audience wi’ my songs, but unless I mak’ them think, and, whiles, greet a bit, too, I’m no succeeding.  There’s plenty can sing a comic song as weel as I can.  But that’s no just the way I think of all my songs.  I try to interpret character in them.  I study queer folk o’ all the sorts I see and know.  And, whiles, I think that in ane of my songs I’m doing, on a wee scale, what a gifted author does in a novel of character.

Aweel, it went straight to my heart, the way those critics wrote about me.  They were not afraid of lowering themselves by writing seriously about a “mere music hall comedian.”  Aye, I’ve had wise gentlemen of the London press speak so of me.  They canna understand, yon gentry, why all the fuss is made about Harry Lauder.  They’re a’ for the Art Theatre, and this movement and that.  But they’re no looking for what’s natural and unforced i’ the theatre, or they’d be closer to-day to having a national theatre than they’ll ever be the gait they’re using the noo!

They’re verra much afraid of hurting their dignity, or they were, in Britain, before I went to America.  I think perhaps it woke them up to read the New York reviews of my appearance.  It’s a sure thing they’ve been more respectful tae me ever since.  And I dinna just mean that it’s to me they’re respectful.  It’s to what I’m trying tae do.  I dinna care a bit what a’body says or thinks of me.  But I tak’ my work seriously.  I couldna keep on doing it did I not, and that’s what sae many canna understand.  They think a man at whom the public maun laugh if he’s to rate himsel’ a success must always be comical; that he can never do a serious thing.  It is a mistaken idea altogether, yon.

I’m thinking Wull Morris must ha’ breathed easier, just as did I, the morning after that first nicht show o’ mine.  He’d been verra sure—­ but, man, he stood to lose a lot o’ siller if he’d found he’d backed the wrang horse!  I was glad for his sake as well as my own that he had not.

After the start my first engagement in New York was one long triumph.  I could ha’ stayed much longer than I did, but there were twa reasons against making any change in the plans that had been arranged.  One is that a long tour is easy to throw oot o’ gear.  Time is allotted long in advance, and for a great many attractions.  If one o’ them loses it’s week, or it’s three nichts, or whatever it may be, it’s hard to fit it in again.  And when a tour’s been planned so as to eliminate so much as possible of doubling back in railway travel, everything may be spoiled by being a week or so late in starting it.