I was nervous, I’ll admit, when I reached the great toon.  I was wrong to lash mysel’, maybe, but it means a great deal to an artist to ha’ the stamp o’ London’s approval upon him.  ’Tis like the hall mark on a bit o’ siller plate.  Still and a’ I could no see hoo they made oot I was sae foolish to be tryin’ for London.  Mebbe they were richt who said I could get no opening in a London hall.  Mebbe the ithers were richt, too, who said that if I did the audience would howl me down and they’d ring doon the curtain on me.  I didna believe that last, though, I’m tellin’ ye—­I was sure that I’d be as well received in London as I had been in Birkenhead, could I but mak’ a manager risk giving me a turn.

Still I was nervous.  The way it lookit to me, I had a’ to gain and nothin’ much tae lose.  If I succeeded—­ah, then there were no bounds to the future I saw before me!  Success in London is like no success in the provinces.  It means far more.  I’d ha’ sung for nothin’—­’deed, and I’d ha’ paid oot ma own good siller to get a turn at one of the big halls.

I had a London agent by that time, a mannie who booked engagements for me in the provinces.  That was his specialty; he did little business in London itself.  He was a decent body; he’d got me the week in Birkenhead, and I liked him fine.  When I went to his office he jumped up and shook hands with me.

“Glad to see you, Lauder,” he said.  “Wish more of you singers and performers from the provinces would run up to London for a visit from time to time.”

“I’m no precisely here on a veesit,” I said, rather dryly.  “What’s chances of finding a shop here?”

“Lord, Lord have you got that bee in your bonnet, too, Harry,” he asked, with a sigh.  “You all do.  You’re doing splendidly in the provinces, Harry.  You’re making more money than some that are doing their turns at the Pay. and the Tiv.  Why can’t you be content?”

“I’m just not, that’s a’,” I said.  “You think there’s nae a chance for me here, then?”

“Not a chance in the world,” he said, promptly.  “It’s no good, Harry, my boy.  They don’t want Scotch comics here any more.  No manager would give you a turn now.  If he did he’d be a fool, because his audience wouldn’t stand for you.  Stay where you belong in Scotland and the north.  They can understand you, there, and know what you’re singing about.”

I could see there was no use arguing wi’ him.  And I could see something else, too.  He was a good agent, and it was to his interest to get me as many engagements, and as good ones, as he could, since he got a commission on all I earned through him.  But if he did not believe I could win an audience, what sort of man was he to be persuading a manner to gang against his judgment and gie me a chance in his theatre?

So I determined that I must see the managers mysel’.  For, as I’ve taul ye before, I’m an awfu’ persistent wee man when my mind’s made up, and no easily to be moved from a resolution I’ve once ta’en.  I was shaken a bit by the agent, I’ll not mind tellin’ ye, for it seemed to me he must know better than I. Who was Harry Lauder, after a’, to set his judgment against that o’ a man whose business it was to ken all aboot such things?  Still, I was sae sure that I went on.