thought, those who
could tell me more than I knew of how he had died, and of how he had
lived before he died. And I thought the boys of the brigade would be
glad to see me and to hear my songs--songs of their hames and their
ain land, auld Scotland. And so I used what influence I had, and did
not think it wrong to employ at such a time, and in such a cause. For
I knew that if they sent me to the Hieland Brigade they would be
sending me to the front of the front line--for that was where I would
have to go seeking the Hieland laddies!

I waited as patiently as I could. And then one day I got my orders! I
was delighted, for the thing they had told me could not be done had
actually been arranged for me. I was asked to get ready to go to
France to entertain the soldiers, and it was the happiest day I had
known since I had heard of my boy's death.

There was not much for me to do in the way of making ready. The whole
trip, of course, would be a military one. I might be setting out as a
minstrel for France, but every detail of my arrangements had to be
made in accordance with military rules, and once I reached France I
would be under the orders of the army in every movement I might make.
All that was carefully explained to me.

But still there were things for me to think about and to arrange. I
wanted some sort of accompaniment for my songs, and how to get it
puzzled me for a time. But there was a firm in London that made
pianos that heard of my coming trip, and solved that problem for me.
They built, and they presented to me, the weest piano ever you saw--a
piano so wee that it could be carried in an ordinary motor car. Only
five octaves it had, but it was big enough, and sma' enough at once.
I was delighted with it, and so were all who saw it. It weighed only
about a hundred and fifty pounds--less than even a middling stout
man! And it was cunningly built, so that no space at all was wasted.
Mrs. Lauder, when she saw it, called it cute, and so did every other
woman who laid eyes upon it. It was designed to be carried on the
grid of a motor car--and so it was, for many miles of shell-torn
roads!

When I was sure of my piano I thought of another thing it would be
well for me to take with me. And so I spent a hundred pounds--five
hundred American dollars--for cigarettes. I knew they would be welcome
everywhere I went. It makes no matter how many cigarettes we send to
France, there will never be enough. My friends thought