So I plied my pick cheerfully enough all day, and went hame to my wife at nicht with a clear conscience and a hopeful heart.  I always looked for a letter, but for a long time I was disappointed each evening.  Then, finally, the letter I had been looking for came.  It was from J. C. MacDonald, and he wanted to know if I could accept an engagement at the Greenock Town Hall in New Year week, for ten performances.  He offered me three pounds—­the biggest salary anyone had named to me yet.  I jumped at the chance, as you may well believe.

Oh, and did I no feel that I was an actor then?  I did so, surely, and that very nicht I went out and bought me some astrachan fur for the collar of my coat!  Do ye ken what that meant to me in yon days?  Then every actor wore a coat with a fur trimmed collar—­it was almost like a badge of rank.  And I maun be as braw as any of them.  The wife smiled quietly as she sewed it on for me, and I was a proud wee man when I strolled into the Greenock Town Hall.  Three pounds a week!  There was a salary for a man to be proud of.  Ye’d ha’ thought I was sure already of making three pounds every week all my life, instead of havin’ just the one engagement.

Pride goeth before a fall ever, and after that, once more, I had to wait for an engagement, and once more I went back to the pit.  I folded the astrachan coat and put it awa’ under the bed, but I would’na tak’ off the fur.

“I’ll be needin’ you again before sae lang,” I told the coat as I folded it.  “See if I don’t.”

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.