I've been asked within a year to sing "Torralladdie"-- the song I won a medal wi' at Glasga while I was still workin' in the pit at Hamilton! No evening is lang enow to sing all my songs in--all those I've gi'en my friends in my audiences at one time and anither in all these nearly thirty years I've been upon the stage.
Else I'd be tryin' it, for the gude fun it wad be.
Anyway, every nicht after that the audience wanted its wee drappie o' Scotch, and got it, in good measure, for I love to sing the Scottish songs.

And when the week was at an end I was promptly re-engaged for a return visit the next season, at the biggest salary that had yet been offered to me.

I was a prood man the day; I felt it was a great thing that had come to me, there on the banks o' the Mersey, sae far frae hame and a', in the England they'd a' tauld me was hae nane o' me and ma sangs! And that week was a turning point in ma life, tae.

It chanced that, what wi' ane thing and anither, I was free for the next twa-three weeks.

I'd plenty of engagements I could get, ye'll ken, but I'd not closed ma time yet wi' anyone.