Between You and Me

by Sir Harry Lauder

He made me great promises. I didna believe them a', for it seemed impossible that they could be true. But I liked the man, and I decided that if the half of what he said was true it would be verra interesting—verra interesting indeed. Whiles, when you deal w' a man and he tells you more than you think he can do, you come to distrust him altogether. It was not so that I felt aboot Wull Morris.

It was a great time when I went off to America at last. My friends made a great to-do aboot my going. There were pipers to play me off—I mind the way they skirled. Verra soft they were playing at the end, ane of my favorite tunes—"Will ye no come back again?" And so I went.

I was a better sailor than I micht ha' thought. I enjoyed the voyage. And I'll ne'er forget my first sicht o' New York. It's e'en more wonderfu' the noo; there's skyscrapers they'd not dared dream of, so high they are, when I was first there. Maybe they've reached the leemit now, but I hae ma doots—I'm never thinking a Yankee has reached a leemit, for I've ma doots that he has ane!

I kenned fine that they'd heard o' me in America. Wull Morris and others had told me that. I knew that there'd be Scots there tae bid me welcome, for the sake of the old country. Scots are clansmen, first and last; they make much of any chance to keep the memory and the spirit of Scotland fresh in a strange land, when they are far frae hame. And so I thought, when I saw land, that I'd be having soon a bit reception frae some fellow Scots, and it was a bonny thing to think upon, sae far frae all I'd known all my life lang.

I was no prepared at a' for what really happened. The Scots were oot— oh, aye, and they had pipers to greet me, and there were auld friends that had settled doon in New York or other parts o' the United States, and had come to meet me. Scots ha' a way o' makin' siller when they get awa' frae Scotland, I'm findin' oot. At hame the competition is fierce, sae there are some puir Scots. But when they gang away they've had such training that no ithers can stand against them, and sae the Scot in a foreign place is like to be amang the leaders.

But it wasna only the Scots turned oot to meet me. There were any number of Americans. And the American reporters! Unless you've come into New York and been met by them you've no idea of what they're like, yon. They made rare sport of me, and I knew they were doing it, though I think they thought, the braw laddies, they were pulling the wool over my een!

There was much that was new for me, and you'll remember I'm a Scot. When I'm travelling a new path, I walk cannily, and see where each foot is going to rest before I set it doon. Sae it was when I came to America. I was anxious to mak' friends in a new land, and I wadna be saying anything to a reporter laddie that could be misunderstood. Sae I asked them a' to let me off, and not mak' me talk till I was able to give a wee bit o' thought to what I had tae say.

They just laughed at one another and at me. And the questions they asked me! They wanted to know what did I think of America? And o' this and o' that that I'd no had the chance tae see. It was a while later before I came to understand that they were joking wi' themselves as well as wi' me. I've learned, since then, that American reporters, and especially those that meet the ships that come in to New York, have had cause to form impressions of their ain of a gude many famous folk that would no be sae flattering to those same folk as what they usually see written aboot themselves.

Some of my best friends in America are those same reporters. They've been good tae me, and I've tried to be fair wi' them. The American press is an institution that seems strange to a Briton, but to an artist it's a blessing. It's thanks to the papers that the people learn sae much aboot an artist in America; it's thanks tae them that they're sae interested in him.

I'm no saying the papers didn't rub my fur the wrang way once or twice; they made mair than they should, I'm thinking, o' the jokes aboot me and the way I'd be carfu' wi' ma siller. But they were aye good natured aboot it. It's a strange thing, that way that folk think I'm sae close wi' my money. I'm canny; I like to think that when I spend my money I get its value in return. But I'm no the only man i' the world feels sae aboot it; that I'm sure of. And I'll no hand oot siller to whoever comes asking. Aye, I'll never do that, and I'd think shame to masel' if I did. The only siller that's gude for a man to have, the only siller that helps him, i' the end, is that which he's worked hard to earn and get.