Part 3 (1/2)

And it was even so, for J. C. MacDonald had liked my singing, and I had been successful with my audiences. He used his influence and recommended me on all sides, and finally, and, this time, after a shorter time than before in the pit, Moss and Thornton offered me a tour of six weeks.

”Nance,” I said to the wife, when the offer came and I had written to accept it, ”I'm thinkin' it'll be sink or swim this time. I'll no be goin' back to the pit, come weal, come woe.”

She looked at me.

”It's bad for the laddies there to be havin' the chance to crack their jokes at me,” I went on. ”I'll stick to it this time and see whether I can mak' a living for us by singin'. And I think that if I can't I'll e'en find other work than in the mine.”

Again she proved herself. For again she said: ”It's yersel' ye must please, Harry. I'm wi' ye, whatever ye do.”

That tour was verra gude for me. If I'd conceit left in me, as my friend in the pit had said, it was knocked out. I was first or last on every bill, and ye ken what it means to an artist to open or close a bill? If ye're to open ye have to start before anyone's in the theatre; if ye close, ye sing to the backs of people crowdin' one another to get out. It's discouraging to have to do so, I'm tellin'

ye, but it's what makes you grit your teeth, too, and determine to gon, if ye've any of the richt stuff in ye.

I sang in bigger places on that tour, and the last two weeks were in Glasgow, at the old Scotia and Gayety Music Halls. It was at the Scotia that a man shouted at me one of the hardest things I ever had to hear. I had just come on, and was doing the walk around before I sang my first song, when I heard him, from the gallery.

”Awa' back tae the pit, man!” he bellowed.

I was so angry I could scarce go on. It was no fair, for I had not sung a note. But we maun learn, on the stage, not to be disconcerted by anything an audience says or does, and, somehow, I managed to go on. They weren't afraid, ever, in yon days, to speak their minds in the gallery--they'd soon let ye know if they'd had enough of ye and yer turn. I was discouraged by that week in old Glasgow. I was sure they'd had enough of me, and that the career of Harry Lauder as a comedian was about to come to an inglorious end.

But Moss and Thornton were better pleased than I was, it seemed, for no sooner was that tour over than they booked me for another. They increased my salary to four pounds a week--ten s.h.i.+llings more than before. And this time my position on the bill was much better; I neither closed nor opened the show, and so got more applause. It did me a world of good to have the hard experience first, but it did me even more to find that my confidence in myself had some justification, too.

That second Moss and Thornton tour was a real turning point for me. I felt a.s.sured of a certain success then; I knew, at least, that I could always mak' a living in the halls. But mark what a little success does to a man!

I'd scarce dared, a year or so before, even to smile at those who told me, half joking, that I might be getting my five pound a week before I died. I'd been afraid they'd think I was taking them seriously, and call me stuck up and conceited. But now I was getting near that great sum, and was sure to get all of it before so long. And I felt that it was no great thing to look ahead to--I, who'd been glad to work hard all week in a coal mine for fifteen s.h.i.+llings!

The more we ha' the more we want. It's always the way wi' all o' us, I'm thinkin'. I was no satisfied at all wi' my prospects and I set out to do all I could, wi' the help of concerts, to better conditions.

CHAPTER V

There was more siller to be made from concerts in yon days than from a regular tour that took me to the music halls. The halls meant steady work, and I was surer of regular earnings, but I liked the concerts. I have never had a happier time in my work than in those days when I was building up my reputation as a concert comedian. There was an uncertainty about it that pleased me, too; there was something exciting about wondering just how things were going.

Now my bookings are made years ahead. I ha' been trying to retire--it will no be so lang, noo, before I do, and settle doon for good in my wee hoose amang the heather at Dunoon on the Clyde. But there is no excitement about an engagement now; I could fill five times as many as I do, if there were but some way of being in twa or three places at once, and of adding a few hours to the days and nichts.

I think one of the proudest times of my life was the first Sat.u.r.day nicht when I could look back on a week when I had had a concert engagement each night in a different town. It was after that, too, that for the first time I flatly refused an engagement. I had the offer of a guinea, but I had fixed a guinea and a half as my minimum fee, and I would'na tak' less, though, after I'd sent the laddie awa'

who offered me the guinea, I could ha' kicked myself.

There were some amusing experiences during those concert days. I often appeared with singers who had won considerable fame--artists who rendered cla.s.sical numbers and opertic selections. I sometimes envied them for their musical gifts, but not seriously--my efforts were in a different field. As a rule I got along extremely well with my fellow performers, but sometimes they were inclined to look down on a mere comedian. Yell ken that I was making a name for myself then, and that I engaged for some concerts at which, as a rule, no comic singer would have been heard.

One night a concert had been arranged by a musical society in a town near Glasgow--a suburb of the city. I was to appear with a quartet soprano, contralto, tenor and ba.s.s. The two ladies and the tenor greeted me cheerfully enough, and seemed glad to see me--the contralto, indeed, was very friendly, and said she always went to hear me when she had the chance. But the ba.s.s was very distant. He glared at me when I came in, and did not return my greeting. He sat and scowled, and grew angrier and angrier.

”Well!” he said, suddenly. ”The rest of you can do as you please, but I shall not sing to-night! I'm an artist, and I value my professional reputation too highly to appear with a vulgarian like this comic singer!”

”Oh, I say, old chap!” said the tenor, looking uncomfortable. ”That's a bit thick! Harry's a good sort--I've heard him----”

”I'm not concerned with his personality!” said the ba.s.s. ”I resent being a.s.sociated with a man who makes a mountebank, a clown, of himself!”

I listened and said nothing. But I'll no be sayin' I did no wink at my friend, the contralto.

The other singers tried to soothe the ba.s.s down, but they couldn't. He looked like a great pouter pigeon, strutting about the room, and then he got red, and I thought he looked like an angry turkey c.o.c.k. The secretary of the society came in, and the ba.s.so attacked him at once.

”I say, Mr. Smith!” he cried. ”There's something wrong here, what!