And this was for doing what I would rather do than anything in the wide, wide world! No wonder I went back to Hamilton and hugged my wife till she thought I'd gone crazy.
I had been engaged as a comic singer, but I had to do much more than sing on that tour, which was to last fourteen weeks--it started, I mind, at Beith, in Ayrshire.

First, when we arrived in a town, I had to see that all the trunks and bags were taken from the station to the hall.

Then I would set out with a pile of leaflets, describing the entertainment, and distribute them where it seemed to me they would do the most good in drawing a crowd.

That was my morning's work.
In the afternoon I was a stage carpenter, and devoted myself to seeing that every thing at the hall was ready for the performance in the evening.

Sometimes that was easy; sometimes, in badly equipped halls, the task called for more ingenuity than I had ever before supposed that I possessed.