Between You and Me by Sir Harry Lauder

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Weel, I was saying, a while back, before I digressed again, that soon
after that nicht at Gatti's I moved to London for a bit. It was wiser,
it seemed tae me. Scotland was a lang way frae London, and it was
needfu' for me to be in the city so much that I grew tired of being
awa' sae much frae the wife and my son John. Sae, for quite a spell, I
lived at Tooting. It was comfortable there. It wasna great hoose in
size, but it was well arranged. There was some ground aboot it, and
mair air than one can find, as a rule, in London. I wasna quite sae
cramped for room and space to breathe as if I'd lived in the West End
--in a flat, maybe, like so many of my friends of the stage. But I
always missed the glen, and I was always dreaming of going back to
Scotland, when the time came.

It was then I first began to play the gowf. Ye mind what I told ye o'
my first game, wi' Mackenzie Murdoch? I never got tae be much more o'
a hand than I was then, nae matter hoo much I played the game. I'm a
gude Scot, but I'm thinkin' I didna tak' up gowf early enough in life.
But I liked to play the game while I was living in London. For ane
thing it reminded me of hame; for another, it gie'd me a chance to get
mair exercise than I would ha done otherwise.

In London ye canna walk aboot much. You ha' to gae tae far at a time.
Thanks to the custom of the halls, I was soon obliged to ha' a motor
brougham o' my ain. It was no an extravagance. There's no other way of
reaching four or maybe five halls in a nicht. You've just time to dash
from one hall, when your last encore's given, and reach the next for
your turn. If you depended upon the tube or even on taxicabs, you
could never do it.

It was then that my brother-in-law, Tom Vallance, began to go aboot
everywhere wi' me. I dinna ken what I'd be doing wi'oot Tom. He's been
all ower the shop wi' me--America, Australia, every where I gae. He
knows everything I need in ma songs, and he helps me tae dress, and
looks after all sorts of things for me. He packs all ma claes and ma
wigs; he keeps ma sticks in order. You've seen ma sticks? Weel, it's
Tom always hands me the richt one just as I'm aboot to step on the
stage. If he gied me the stick I use in "She's Ma Daisy" when I was
aboot to sing "I Love a Lassie" I believe I'd have tae ha' the curtain
rung doon upon me. But he never has. I can trust old Tom. Aye, I ca'
trust him in great things as well as sma'.

It took me a lang time to get used to knowing I had arrived, as the
saying is. Whiles I'd still be worried, sometimes, aboot the future.
But soon it got so's I could scarce imagine a time when getting an
engagement had seemed a great thing. In the old days I used to look in
the wee book I kept, and I'd see a week's engagement marked, a long
time ahead, and be thankfu' that that week, at least, there'd be
siller coming in.

And noo--well, the noo it's when I look in the book and see, maybe a
year ahead, a blank week, when I've no singing the do, that I'm
pleased.

"Eh, Tom," I'll say. "Here's a bit o' luck! Here's the week frae
September fifteenth on next year when I've no dates!"

"Aye, Harry," he'll answer me. "D'ye no remember? We'll be on the
ocean then, bound for America. That's why there's no dates that week."

But the time will be coming soon when I can stop and rest and tak'
life easy. 'Twill no be as happy a time as I'd dreamed it micht be.
His mither and I had looked forward to settling doon when ma work was
done, wi' my boy John living nearby. I bought my farm at Dunoon that
he micht ha' a place o' his ain to tak' his wife tae when he married
her, and where his bairns could be brought up as bairns should be, wi'
glen and hill to play wi'. Aweel, God has not willed that it should be
sae. Mrs. Lauder and I canna have the grandchildren we'd dreamed aboot
to play at our knees.

But we've one another still, and there's muckle tae be thankfu' for.

One thing I liked fine aboot living in London as I did. I got to know
my boy better than I could ha' done had we stayed at hame ayant the
Tweed. I could sleep hame almost every nicht, and I'd get up early
enough i' the morning to spend some time wi' him. He was at school a
great deal, but he was always glad tae see his dad. He was a rare hand
wi' the piano, was John--a far better musician than ever I was or
shall be. He'd play accompaniments for me often, and I've never had an
accompanist I liked sae well. It's no because he was my boy I say that
he had a touch, and a way of understanding just what I was trying tae
do when I sang a song, that made his accompaniment a part of the song
and no just something that supported ma voice.

But John had no liking for the stage or the concert platform. It was
the law that interested him. That aye seemed a little strange tae me.
But I was glad that he should do as it pleased him. It was a grand
thing, his mother and I thought, that we could see him gae to
Cambridge, as we'd dreamed, once, many years before it ever seemed
possible, that he micht do. And before the country called him to war
he took his degree, and was ready to begin to read law.

We played many a game o' billiards together, John and I, i' the wee
hoose at Tooting. We were both fond o' the game, though I think
neither one of us was a great player. John was better than I, but I
was the stronger in yon days, and I'd tak' a great swipe sometimes and
pocket a' the balls. John was never quite sure whether I meant to mak'
some o' the shots, but he was a polite laddie, and he'd no like to be
accusing his faither o' just being lucky.

"Did ye mean that shot, pal" he'd ask me, sometimes. I'd aye say yes,
and, in a manner o' speaking, I had.

Aweel, yon days canna come again! But it's gude to think upon them.
And it's better to ha' had them than no, no matter what Tennyson sang
once. "A sorrow's crown of sorrow--to remember happier things." Was it
no sae it went? I'm no thinking sae! I'm glad o' every memory I have
of the boy that lies in France.

CHAPTER XVII

There was talk that I micht gae to America lang before the time came.
I'd offers--oh, aye! But I was uncertain. It was a tricky business,
tae go sae far frae hame. A body would be a fool to do sae unless he
waur sure and siccar against loss. All the time I was doing better and
better in Britain. And it seems that American visitors to Britain,
tourists and the like, came to hear me often, and carried hame
reports--to say nothing of the scouts the American managers always
have abroad.

Still, I was verra reluctant tae mak' the journey. I was no kennin'
what sort of a hand I'd be for an ocean voyage. And then, I was liking
my ain hame fine, and the idea of going awa' frae it for many months
was trying tae me. It was William Morris persuaded me in the end, of
course. There's a man would persuade a'body at a' tae do his will.
He'll be richt sae, often, you see, that you canna hault oot against
the laddie at all. I'm awfu' fond o' Wullie Morris. He should ha' been
a Scot.

He made me great promises. I didna believe them a', for it seemed
impossible that they could be true. But I liked the man, and I decided
that if the half of what he said was true it would be verra
interesting--verra interesting indeed. Whiles, when you deal w' a man
and he tells you more than you think he can do, you come to distrust
him altogether. It was not so that I felt aboot Wull Morris.

It was a great time when I went off to America at last. My friends
made a great to-do aboot my going. There were pipers to play me off--I
mind the way they skirled. Verra soft they were playing at the end,
ane of my favorite tunes--"Will ye no come back again?" And so I went.

I was a better sailor than I micht ha' thought. I enjoyed the voyage.
And I'll ne'er forget my first sicht o' New York. It's e'en more
wonderfu' the noo; there's skyscrapers they'd not dared dream of, so
high they are, when I was first there. Maybe they've reached the
leemit now, but I hae ma doots--I'm never thinking a Yankee has
reached a leemit, for I've ma doots that he has ane!

I kenned fine that they'd heard o' me in America. Wull Morris and
others had told me that. I knew that there'd be Scots there tae bid me
welcome, for the sake of the old country. Scots are clansmen, first
and last; they make much of any chance to keep the memory and the
spirit of Scotland fresh in a strange land, when they are far frae
hame. And so I thought, when I saw land, that I'd be having soon a bit
reception frae some fellow Scots, and it was a bonny thing to think
upon, sae far frae all I'd known all my life lang.

I was no prepared at a' for what really happened. The Scots were oot--
oh, aye, and they had pipers to greet me, and there were auld friends
that had settled doon in New York or other parts o' the United States,
and had come to meet me. Scots ha' a way o' makin' siller when they
get awa' frae Scotland, I'm findin' oot. At hame the competition is
fierce, sae there are some puir Scots. But when they gang away they've
had such training that no ithers can stand against them, and sae the
Scot in a foreign place is like to be amang the leaders.

But it wasna only the Scots turned oot to meet me. There were any
number of Americans. And the American reporters! Unless you've come
into New York and been met by them you've no idea of what they're
like, yon. They made rare sport of me, and I knew they were doing it,
though I think they thought, the braw laddies, they were pulling the
wool over my een!

There was much that was new for me, and you'll remember I'm a Scot.
When I'm travelling a new path, I walk cannily, and see where each
foot is going to rest before I set it doon. Sae it was when I came to
America. I was anxious to mak' friends in a new land, and I wadna be
saying anything to a reporter laddie that could be misunderstood. Sae
I asked them a' to let me off, and not mak' me talk till I was able to
give a wee bit o' thought to what I had tae say.

They just laughed at one another and at me. And the questions they
asked me! They wanted to know what did I think of America? And o' this
and o' that that I'd no had the chance tae see. It was a while later
before I came to understand that they were joking wi' themselves as
well as wi' me. I've learned, since then, that American reporters, and
especially those that meet the ships that come in to New York, have
had cause to form impressions of their ain of a gude many famous folk
that would no be sae flattering to those same folk as what they
usually see written aboot themselves.

Some of my best friends in America are those same reporters. They've
been good tae me, and I've tried to be fair wi' them. The American
press is an institution that seems strange to a Briton, but to an
artist it's a blessing. It's thanks to the papers that the people
learn sae much aboot an artist in America; it's thanks tae them that
they're sae interested in him.

I'm no saying the papers didn't rub my fur the wrang way once or
twice; they made mair than they should, I'm thinking, o' the jokes
aboot me and the way I'd be carfu' wi' ma siller. But they were aye
good natured aboot it. It's a strange thing, that way that folk think
I'm sae close wi' my money. I'm canny; I like to think that when I
spend my money I get its value in return. But I'm no the only man i'
the world feels sae aboot it; that I'm sure of. And I'll no hand oot
siller to whoever comes asking. Aye, I'll never do that, and I'd think
shame to masel' if I did. The only siller that's gude for a man to
have, the only siller that helps him, i' the end, is that which he's
worked hard to earn and get.

Oh, gi'e'n a body's sick, or in trouble o' some sair sort, that's
different; he deserves help then, and it's nae the same thing. But
what should I or any other man gie money to an able bodied laddie that
can e'en work for what he needs, the same as you and me? It fashes me
to ha' such an one come cadging siller frae me; I'd think wrong to
encourage him by gi'e'n it the him.

You maun work i' this world. If your siller comes tae you too easily,
you'll gain nae pleasure nor profit frae the spending on't. The things
we enjoy the maist are not those that are gi'e'n to us; they're those
that, when we look at, mean weeks or months or maybe years of work.
When you've to work for what you get you have the double pleasure. You
look forward for a lang time, while you're working, to what your work
will bring you. And then, in the end, you get it--and you know you're
beholden tae no man but yourself for what you have. Is that no a grand
feeling?

Aweel, it's no matter. I'm glad for the laddies to hae their fun wi'
me. They mean no harm, and they do no harm. But I've been wishfu',
sometimes, that the American reporters had a wee bit less imagination.
'Tis a grand thing, imagination; I've got it masel, tae some extent.
But those New York reporters--and especially the first ones I met!
Man, they put me in the shade altogether!

I'd little to say to them the day I landed; I needed time tae think
and assort my impressions. I didna ken my own self just what I was
thinking aboot New York and America. And then, I'd made arrangements
wi' the editor of one of the great New York papers to write a wee
piece for his journal that should be telling his readers hoo I felt.
He was to pay me weel for that, and it seemed no more than fair that
he should ha' the valuable words of Harry Lauder to himself, since he
was willing to pay for them.

But did it mak' a wee bit of difference tae those laddies that I had
nought to say to them? That it did--not! I bade them all farewell at
my hotel. But the next morning, when the papers were brought to me,
they'd all long interviews wi' me. I learned that I thought America
was the grandest country I'd ever seen. One said I was thinking of
settling doon here, and not going hame to Scotland at a' any more! And
another said I'd declared I was sorry I'd not been born in the United
States, since, noo, e'en though I was naturalized--as that paper said
I meant tae be!--I could no become president of the United States!

Some folk took that seriously--folk at hame, in the main. They've an
idea, in America, that English folk and Scots ha' no got a great sense
of humor. It's not that we've no got one; it's just that Americans ha'
a humor of a different sort. They've a verra keen sense o' the
ridiculous, and they're as fond of a joke that's turned against
themselves as of one they play upon another pairson. That's a fine
trait, and it makes it easy to amuse them in the theatre.

I think I was mair nervous aboot my first appearance in New York than
I'd ever been in ma life before. In some ways it was worse than that
nicht in the old Gatti's in London. I'd come tae New York wi' a
reputation o' sorts, ye ken; I'd brought naethin' o' the sort tae New
York.

When an artist comes tae a new country wi' sae much talk aboot him as
there was in America concerning me, there's always folk that tak' it
as a challenge.

"Eh!" they'll say. "So there's Harry Lauder coming, is there? And he's
the funniest wee man in the halls, is he? He'd make a graven image
laugh, would he? Well, I'll be seeing! Maybe he can make me laugh--
maybe no. We'll just be seeing."

That's human nature. It's natural for people to want to form their own
judgments aboot everything. And it's natural, tae, for them tae be
almost prejudiced against anyone aboot whom sae much has been said. I
realized a' that; I'd ha' felt the same way myself. It meant a great
deal, too, the way I went in New York. If I succeeded there I was sure
to do well i' the rest of America. But to fail in New York, to lose
the stamp of a Broadway approval--that wad be laying too great a
handicap altogether upon the rest of my tour.

In London I'd had nothing to lose. Gi'e'n I hadna made my hit that
first nicht in the Westminster Bridge Road, no one would have known
the difference. But in New York there'd be everyone waiting. The
critics would all be there--not just men who write up the music halls,
but the regular critics, that attend first nichts at the theatre. It
was a different and a mair serious business than anything I'd known in
London.

It was a great theatre in which I appeared--one o' the biggest in New
York, and the greatest I'd ever played in, I think, up tae that time.
And when the nicht came for my first show the hoose was crowded; there
was not a seat to be had, e'en frae the speculators.

Weel, there's ane thing I've learned in my time on the stage. You
canna treat an audience in any verra special way, just because you're
anxious that it shall like you. You maun just do your best, as you've
been used to doing it. I had this much in my favor--I was singing auld
songs, that I knew weel the way of. And then, tae, many of that
audience knew me. There were a gude few Scots amang it; there were
American friends I'd made on the other side, when they'd been
visiting. And there was another thing I'd no gi'en a thocht, and that
was the way sae many o' them knew ma songs frae havin' heard them on
the gramaphone.

It wasna till after I'd been in America that I made sae many records,
but I'd made enough at lime for some of my songs tae become popular,
and so it wasna quite sicca novelty as I'd thought it micht be for
them to hear me. Oh, aye, what wi' one thing and another it would have
been my ain fault had that audience no liked hearing me sing that
nicht.

But I was fairly overwhelmed by what happened when I'd finished my
first song. The house rose and roared at me. I'd never seen sic a
demonstration. I'd had applause in my time, but nothing like that.
They laughed frae the moment I first waggled my kilt at them, before I
did more than laugh as I came oot to walk aroond. But there were
cheers when I'd done; it was nae just clapping of the hands they gie'd
me. It brought the tears to my een to hear them. And I knew then that
I'd made a whole new countryful of friends that nicht--for after that
I couldna hae doots aboot the way they'd be receiving me elsewhere.

Even sae, the papers surprised me the next morning. They did sae much
more than just praise me! They took me seriously--and that was
something the writers at hame had never done. They saw what I was
aiming at wi' my songs. They understood that I was not just a
comedian, not just a "Scotch comic." I maun amuse an audience wi' my
songs, but unless I mak' them think, and, whiles, greet a bit, too,
I'm no succeeding. There's plenty can sing a comic song as weel as I
can. But that's no just the way I think of all my songs. I try to
interpret character in them. I study queer folk o' all the sorts I see
and know. And, whiles, I think that in ane of my songs I'm doing, on a
wee scale, what a gifted author does in a novel of character.

Aweel, it went straight to my heart, the way those critics wrote about
me. They were not afraid of lowering themselves by writing seriously
about a "mere music hall comedian." Aye, I've had wise gentlemen of
the London press speak so of me. They canna understand, yon gentry,
why all the fuss is made about Harry Lauder. They're a' for the Art
Theatre, and this movement and that. But they're no looking for what's
natural and unforced i' the theatre, or they'd be closer to-day to
having a national theatre than they'll ever be the gait they're using
the noo!

They're verra much afraid of hurting their dignity, or they were, in
Britain, before I went to America. I think perhaps it woke them up to
read the New York reviews of my appearance. It's a sure thing they've
been more respectful tae me ever since. And I dinna just mean that
it's to me they're respectful. It's to what I'm trying tae do. I dinna
care a bit what a'body says or thinks of me. But I tak' my work
seriously. I couldna keep on doing it did I not, and that's what sae
many canna understand. They think a man at whom the public maun laugh
if he's to rate himsel' a success must always be comical; that he can
never do a serious thing. It is a mistaken idea altogether, yon.

I'm thinking Wull Morris must ha' breathed easier, just as did I, the
morning after that first nicht show o' mine. He'd been verra sure--
but, man, he stood to lose a lot o' siller if he'd found he'd backed
the wrang horse! I was glad for his sake as well as my own that he had
not.

After the start my first engagement in New York was one long triumph.
I could ha' stayed much longer than I did, but there were twa reasons
against making any change in the plans that had been arranged. One is
that a long tour is easy to throw oot o' gear. Time is allotted long
in advance, and for a great many attractions. If one o' them loses
it's week, or it's three nichts, or whatever it may be, it's hard to
fit it in again. And when a tour's been planned so as to eliminate so
much as possible of doubling back in railway travel, everything may be
spoiled by being a week or so late in starting it.

Then, there was another thing. I was sure to be coming back to New
York again, and it was as weel to leave the city when it was still
hard to be buying tickets for my show. That's business; I could see it
as readily as could Wull Morris, who was a revelation tae me then as a
manager. He's my friend, as well as my manager, the noo, you'll ken; I
tak' his advice aboot many and many a thing, and we've never had
anything that sounded like even the beginnings of a quarrel.

Sae on I went frae New York. I was amazed at the other cities--Boston,
Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Chicago, Pittsburgh--in a' o'
them the greeting New York had gi'en me was but just duplicated. They
couldna mak' enough of me. And everywhere I made new friends, and
found new reason to rejoice over having braved the hazardous adventure
of an American tour.

Did I tell you how I was warned against crossing the ocean? It was the
same as when I'd thought of trying ma luck in London. The same sort of
friends flocked about me.

"Why will you be risking all you've won, Harry?" they asked me. "Here
in Britain you're safe--your reputation's made, and you're sure of a
comfortable living, and more, as long as you care to stay on the
stage. There they might not understand you, and you would suffer a
great blow to your prestige if you went there and failed."

I didna think that, e'en were I to fail in America, it would prevent
me frae coming back to Britain and doing just as well as ever I had.
But, then, too, I didna think much o' that idea. Because, you see, I
was so sure I was going to succeed, as I had succeeded before against
odds and in the face of all the croakers and prophets of misfortune
had to say.

CHAPTER XVIII

It was a hard thing for me to get used to thinking o' the great
distances of travel in America. In Britain aboot the longest trip one
wad be like to make wad be frae London tae Glasga or the other way
around. And that's but a matter of a day or a nicht. Wull Morris
showed me a route for my tour that meant travelling, often and often,
five hundred miles frae ane toon tae the next. I was afraid at first,
for it seemed that I'd ha' tae be travelling for months at a time. I'd
heard of the hotels in the sma' places, and I knew they couldna be tae
good.

It's harder than one wha hasna done it can realize the travel and gie
twa shows a day for any length of time. If it was staying always a
week or mair in the ane city, it would be better. But in America, for
the first time, I had to combine long travelling wi' constant singing.
Folks come in frae long distances to a toon when a show they want to
see is booked to appear, and it's necessary that there should be a
matinee as well as a nicht performance whenever it's at a' possible.

They all told me not to fret; that I didna ken, until I'd seen for
myself, how comfortable travel in America could be made. I had my
private car--that was a rare thing for me to be thinking of. And,
indeed, it was as comfortable as anyone made me think it could be.
There was a real bedroom--I never slept in a berth, but in a brass
bed, just as saft and comfortable as ever I could ha' known in ma own
wee hoose at hame. Then there was a sitting room, as nice and hamely
as you please, where I could rest and crack, whiles we were waiting in
a station, wi' friends wha came callin'.

I wasna dependent on hotels at all, after the way I'd been led to fear
them. It was only in the great cities, where we stayed a week or mair,
that I left the car and stopped in a hotel. And even then it was mair
because the yards, where the car would wait, would be noisy, and would
be far awa' frae the theatre, than because the hotel was mair
comfortable, that we abandoned the car.

Our own cook travelled wi' us. I'm a great hand for Scottish cooking.
Mrs. Lauder will bake me a scone, noo and then, no matter whaur we
are. And the parritch and a' the other Scottish dishes tickle my
palate something grand. Still it was a revelation to me, the way that
negro cooked for us! Things I'd never heard of he'd be sending to the
table each day, and when I'd see him and tell him that I liked
something special he'd made, it was a treat to see his white teeth
shining oot o' his black face.

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