in public, so many yearst agane that it hurts
a little to count the tale o' them, I've been like a doctor who keeps
his finger on the pulse of his patient.

I've tried to ken, always, day in, day oot, how I was pleasing you--
the public. You make up my audiences. And--it is you who send the
other audiences, that hae no heard me yet, to come to the theatre. To-
morrow nicht's audience is in the making to-nicht. If you folk who are
out in front the noo, beyond the glare of the footlights, dinna care
for me, dinna like the way I'm trying to please you, and amuse you,
there'll be empty seats in the hoose to-morrow and the next day.

Sae that's my answer, I'm thinking, to my wife when she tells me to
beware of turning into a preacher. I mind, do you ken, the way I've
talked to audiences at hame, and in America and Australia, these last
twa or three years. It was the war led me to do it first. I was
surprised, in the beginning. I had just the idea of saying a few
words. But you who were listening to me would not let me stop. You
asked for more and more--you made me think you wanted to know what old
Harry Lauder was thinking.

There was a day in Kansas City that I remember well. Kansas City is a
great place. And it has a wonderful hall--a place where national
conventions are held. I was there in 1918 just before the Germans
delivered their great assault in March, when they came so near to
breaking our line and reaching the Channel ports we'd held them from
through all the long years of the war. I was nervous, I'll no be
denying that. What Briton was not, that had a way of knowing how
terrible a time was upon us? And I knew--aye, it was known, in London
and in Washington, that the Hun was making ready for his last effort.

Those were dark and troubled days. The great American army that
General Pershing has led hame victorious the noo was still in the
making. The Americans were there in France, but they had not finished
their training. And it was in the time when they were just aboot ready
to begin to stream into France in really great numbers. But at hame,
in America, and especially out West, it was hard to realize how great
an effort was still needed.

America had raised her great armies. She had done wonders--and it was
natural for those folk, safe at hame, and far, far away frae all the
turmoil and the stress of the fighting, to think that they had done
enough.

The Americans knew, you'll ken, that they were resistles