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ROAMIN' IN THE GLOAMIN' 243
"my friend MacKay" and what the two of them would do when they met. Result — one of my best recent numbers "When I Meet MacKay." All my sailor songs, including "There is Somebody Waiting for Me" and a new "Pirate" song which I am just rounding off have been inspired on board ship. So you see I am never really idle. Constitutionally I seem to be incapable of idleness or laziness of any description. Ever since the war I have felt that I must be "up and at it !" all the time.
And America has given me all the hard work that I have been able to take on during the past few years ! Believe me, I must have been a very strong man indeed to have fulfilled all the professional responsibilities taken on for me by Mr. Morris since 1918! During the years that have intervened since then I have seldom been out of the States for more than a few months at a time. He has even taken me down to Mexico. And my last tour was easily the most strenuous of all. For goodness knows how many weeks I did little else than play one-night shows. It was a raging, tearing, tireless campaign throughout most of the States of the Union. How I did not succumb under the physical pressure I do not know but this I do know — I will never again take on such a task for Will Morris or any other man, no matter how tempting the "rake-off" may be ! No, sirs, never no more !
Only in America could any man come through such a six-months' hustle without a complete bodily and mental collapse. There is, as I have stated earlier in this story, a something in the very air of the country which sustains one and permits of long-continued exertions which would be impossible under any other than electrical conditions. Besides one is daily being brought into contact with old friends or new ones presenting fresh and fascinating types of character. And here it occurs to me that it might not be out of place to make a few very brief references to some of the betterknown men and women I have met in the course of my