They taught me not to be afraid, so long as I was doing my best, and they taught me, too, to study my hearers and learn to decide what folk liked, and why they liked it.
I had no songs of my own then, ye'll understand; I just sang such bits as I'd picked up of the popular songs of the day, that the famous "comics" of the music halls were singing--or that they'd been singing a year before--aye, that'll be nearer the truth of it! I had one rival I didn't like, though, as I look back the noo, I can see I was'na too kind to feel as I did aboot puir Jock.

Jock coul no stand it to have anyone else applauded, or to see them getting attention he craved for himself.

He could no sing, but he was a great story teller.

Had he just said, out and out, that he was making up tales, 'twould have been all richt enough.

But, no--Jock must pretend he'd been everywhere he told about, and that he'd been an actor in every yarn he spun.