Roamin’ in the gloamin’ (1928)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN I PLAY FOR ROYALTY During this trip the American papers were once more exceedingly kind to me. Had I paid thousands and thousands of dollars I could not have secured a tenth part of the publicity they gave me. This is where my lucky star has always come to my aid. Quite apart from any quality of freshness and originality which may have been in my "act," the U. S. A. press helped to make me a public character. If I was asked to visit the Mayor in his civic parlour there was a column about it next morning. If I attended a Caledonian function of any kind the fact was reported — with photographs of me in my kilt shaking hands and smiling my broadest smile. If I went to a hospital ward and entertained the inmates, the youngest child in the place was "introduced" to me and again the flashlight brigade was in action to a man! I honestly never asked for all this publicity and I do not think Will Morris had much to do with it either at that time. Later, of course, he pulled all sorts of stunts in subsequent tours and I remember that I used to become thoroughly tired of the way he worked me quite apart from my stage business. But during this first trip under his wing both press and public seemed to lionize me of their own accord. Indeed at the end of the fourteen weeks I was glad to get back again to Britain for some rest and recreation. So my career went on for several years. I would play a few months at home filling old contracts and making new ones — at prices which made the managers take deep breaths as they nervously attached their names — and then would whisk off to the States for three, four, or six months according to how I could arrange releases from my engagements 172