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ROAMIN' IN THE GLOAMIN' 31
to the first money I ever earned. You see how the Adam in Harry Lauder asserts itself. If I am ever stumped for a story or a subject in this book I can always turn on the moneymaking tap. It will never fail me. Perhaps this is only to be expected in the life story of a man who is supposed to think more of "siller" than the average Scotsman and who is popularly reputed to have collected — and kept — more than his fair share of it all over the world! But, in the meantime, we'll "let that flea stick to the wa' !" It has been a grand advertisement for me all my life and why should I complain of the best free advertisement any public man ever had anywhere, at any time ?
I would be about eight years of age when a well-known worthy in the village called Wattie Sandilands gave me the opportunity of earning my first few coppers. He kept a large number of pigs. The "soo craes" at Wattie's place had a peculiar fascination for me and many an hour I spent watching their inmates. One day the old man said that if I would help him to feed the pigs he would give me sixpence a week. Would I ? I could scarcely answer him for the thumping of my heart. Sixpence a week for doing a job which I would gladly have done for nothing! So the bargain was struck. Each night for a fortnight I slipped along to Wattie's, helped him to unload the refuse from the tins in which he collected it all over the town, mix it and dump it in the troughs. For two Saturdays I got my sixpence and proudly took it home to my mother. She was not exactly enamoured of my first job, not because of its humble nature, but owing to the fact that Wattie had the reputation of being a very short-tempered man and quick with his hands. My father, when consulted, only laughed and said that if I was feeding pigs I was being kept out of mischief in other directions. "Besides," he added, "Harry may be a farmer some day and the experience will do him good." (The words were prophetic. I was a farmer many years afterwards but any experience I had as