It was about this time that I attended my first public dinner and made my
first speech in public. Several days before the event I was told that,
being in the Volunteer Force, I had been placed on the toast list to
reply for the Army, Navy and Volunteers. It was a railway dinner, for
the purpose of celebrating the departure to England, on promotion, of the
chief clerk in the Midland Railway Company's Scottish Agency Office. The
dinner was largely attended. The idea of having to speak filled me with
trepidation. But to my great surprise I acquitted myself with credit.
Once on my legs I found that nervousness left me, words came freely and I
even enjoyed the novel experience. To suddenly discover oneself
proficient where failure had been feared increases self esteem and adds
to the sum of happiness. At this dinner I also made my first
acquaintance with that "Great chieftain o' the puddin' race," the
_Haggis_, which deserves the pre-eminence it enjoys.

One night, towards the end of December, in 1874, when skating by
moonlight, not far from Cambuslang, I chanced to meet a young friend, a
clerk in the Glasgow and South-Western Railway, who, like myself, was
enjoying the pleasures of the ice. Tom was not with me, for he, poor
fellow! was not well enough to be out o' nights in winter. My young
friend gave me, with great eagerness, a rare piece of news. Mr.
Johnstone, the Glasgow and South-Western general manager, was retiring
and Mr. Wainwright was to succeed him! Well, that did not excite me, and
I wondered at his earnestness; but more was to follow. Mr. Wainwright,
as general manager, required a principal clerk and there was, it seemed,
no one in the place quite suitable. He must be good at correspondence,
and expert at shorthand. I was, my young friend said, the very man; I
must apply. Mr. Wainwright was English, so was I; I came from the
Midland, and the Midland and the Glasgow and South-Western were hand and