Now, Nance liked my singin' well enough, and she thought, as I did,
that I could do better than some we'd heard on the stage. But I think
what she thought chiefly was that if my mind was made `up to try it
she'd not stand in my way. I wish more wives were like her, bless her!
Then there'd be fewer men moaning of their lost chances to win fame
and fortune. Many a time my wife's saved me from a mistake, but she's
never stood in the way when I felt it was safe to risk something, and
she's never laughed at me, and said, "I told ye so, Harry," when
things ha' gone wrong--even when her advice was against what I was
minded to try.

We talked it all over that nicht--'twas late, I'm tellin' ye, before
we quit and crept into bed, and even then we talked on a bit, in the
dark.

"Ye maun please yersel', Harry," Nance said. "We've thought of every
thing, and it can do no harm to try. If things don't go well, ye can
always go back to the pit and mak' a living."

That was so, ye ken. I had my trade to fall back upon. So I read all
the advertisements, and at last I saw one put in by the manager of a
concert party that was about to mak' a Scottish tour. He wanted a
comic, and, after we'd exchanged two or three letters we had an
interview. I sang some songs for him, and he engaged me, at thirty-
five shillings a week--about eight dollars, in American money--a
little more.

That seemed like a great sum to me in those days. It was no so bad.
Money went farther then, and in Scotland especially, than it does the