Oh, we’ll no come to anything like that in Britain and America.  I’ve sma’ patience wi’ those that talk as if the Bolsheviki would be ruling us come the morrow.  We’re no that sort o’ folk, we Britons and Americans.  We’ve settled our troubles our ain way these twa thousand years, and we’ll e’en do sae again.  But we maun recognize that there are things we maun do tae mak’ the lot of the man that’s underneath a happier and a better one.

He maun help, tae.  He maun realize that there’s a chance for him.  I’m haulding mysel’ as one proof of that—­it’s why I’ve told you sae muckle in this book of myself and the way that I’ve come frae the pit tae the success and the comfort that I ken the noo.

I had to learn, lang agane, that my business was not only mine.  Maybe you’ll think that I’m less concerned with others and their affairs than maist folk, and maybe that’s true, tae.  But I. canna forget others, gi’en I would.  When I’m singing I maun have a theatre i’ which to appear.  And I canna fill that always by mysel’.  I maun gae frae place to place, and in the weeks of the year when I’m no appearing there maun be others, else the theatre will no mak’ siller enough for its owners to keep it open.

And then, let’s gie a thought to just the matter of my performance.  There must be an orchestra.  It maun play wi’ me; it maun be able to accompany me.  An orchestra, if it is no richt, can mak’ my best song sound foolish and like the singing o’ some one who dinna ken ane note of music frae the next.  So I’m dependent on the musicians—­and they on me.  And then there maun be stage hands, to set the scenes.  Folk wouldna like it if I sang in a theatre wi’oot scenery.  There maun be those that sell tickets, and tak’ them at the doors, and ushers to show the folk their seats.

And e’en before a’body comes tae the hoose to pay his siller for a ticket there’s others I’m dependent upon.  How do they ken I’m in the toon at a’?  They’ve read it in the papers, maybe—­and there’s reporters and printers I’ve tae thank.  Or they’ve seen my name and my picture on a hoarding, and I’ve to think o’ the men who made the lithograph sheets, and the billposters who put them up.  Sae here’s Harry Lauder and a’ the folk he maun have tae help him mak’ a living and earn his bit siller!  More than you’d thought’ Aye, and more than I’d thought, sometimes.

There’s a michty few folk i’ this world who can say they’re no dependant upon others in some measure.  I ken o’ none, myself.  It’s a fine thing to mind one’s ain business, but if one gies the matter thought one will find, I think, that a man’s business spreads oot more than maist folk reckon it does.

Here, again.  In the States there’s been trouble about the men that work on the railways.  Can I say it’s no my business?  Is it no?  Suppose they gae oot on strike?  How am I to mak’ my trips frae one toon the the next?  And should I no be finding oot, if there’s like that threatening to my business, where the richt lies?  You will be finding it’s sae, too, in your affairs; there’s little can come that willna affect you, soon or late.