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136 ROAMIN' IN THE GLOAMIN'
family, that I determined to get a companion song to it. But this didn't materialize for several years until I struck "Roamin' In The Gloamin' " which is a story all on its own to be told later.
My work in that Glasgow Pantomime really put me on the map as a popular favourite in Britain. I was besieged with requests for "dates" all over the country but to each and every enquirer I had, alas, to give the same answer — sorry, am booked up for years ahead! My gramophone records began to sell like hot cakes and here again I had reason to regret the precipitancy with which I had made arrangements during my early visits to London. It was no unusual thing for me to go to the recording offices and make half-a-dozen records in a day for a pound a time! Yes, "Tobermory," "Calligan," "She's Ma Daisy," "Stop yer Ticklin', Jock" — they all went for a "quid a nob" — or six songs for a fiver down !
It looked a lot of money to me in those days. Why, five pounds for singing a few songs was as much as a miner could earn by hard work in a fortnight ! The Gramophone Company of Great Britain did one of their best strokes of work when they got me "on the cheap." In justice to them, however, I must say that when my contracts with them came to be renewed they took a very generous view of my earlier stupidity and I have been very good friends with them and the Victor people of America for twenty years. A few years ago I signed a life-contract with the British company. Occasionally, when in a reflective mood or when going over the bank-book, I fall to dreaming of just how much money I ought to have earned from the millions and millions of gramaphone records of mine sold all over the two hemispheres. But it is always a painful business! Once I discussed the matter with my old friend Caruso and the figures he gave me from his angle made me so ill that I suddenly