've a way
wi' ye, Harry, my wee man!"

'Deed, and I did believe that mysel'! It's hard for a man like me to
know what he can do, and say so when the time comes, wi'oot making
thoughtless folk think he's conceited. An artist's feeling aboot such
things is a curious one, and hard for any but artists to understand.
It's a grand presumption in a man, if ye look at it in one way, that
leads him to think he's got the right to stand up on a stage and ask a
thousand people, or five thousand, to listen to him--to laugh when he
bids them laugh, greet when he would ha' them sad.

To bid an audience gather, gie up its plans and its pursuits, tak' an
hoor or two of its time--that's a muckle thing to ask! And then to
mak' them pay siller, too, for the chance to hear you! It's past
belief, almost, how we can do it, in the beginning. I'm thinking, the
noo, how gude a thing it was I did not know, when I first quit the pit
and got J. C. MacDonald to send me oot, how much there was for me to
learn. I ken it weel the noo--I ken how great a chance it was, in yon
early days.

But when an artist's time has come, when he has come to know his
audiences, and what they like, and why--then it is different. And by
this time I was a veteran singer, as you micht say. I'd sung before
all sorts of folk. They'd been quick enough to let me know the things
they didn't like. In you days, if a man in a gallery didna like a song
or the way I sang it, he'd call oot. Sometimes he'd get the crowd wi'
him--sometimes they'd rally to me, and shout him doon.

"Go on, Harry--sing yer own way--gang yer ain gait!" I've heard
encouraging cries like that many and many a time. But I've always
learned from those that disapproved o' me. They're quieter the noo. I
ha' to watch folk, and see, from the way they clap, and the way they
look when they're listening, whether I'm doing richt or wrong.

It's a digression, maybe, but I micht tell ye hoo a new song gets into
my list. I must add a new song every sae often, ye ken. An' I ha'
always a dozen or mair ready to try. I help in the writing o' my ain
songs, most often, and so I ken it frae the first. It's changed and
changed, both in words and music, over and over again. Then, when I
think it's finished, I begin to sing it to mysel'. I'll sing while I'm
shaving, when I tak' my bath, as I wander aboot the hoose or sit still
in a railway train. I try all sorts of different little tricks,
shadings o' my voice, degrees of exp