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For me that first nicht at Gatti's old hall in the Westminster Bridge road seems like a magic memory, even the noo. I'm sorry the wife was no wi' me; had I been able to be sure o' getting the show Tom Tinsley gied me I'd ha' had her doon. As it was it wad ha' seemed like tempting Providence, and I've never been any hand tae do that. I'm no superstitious, exactly certainly I'm no sae for a Scot.
Then for the first time that day Selah burst suddenly into tears. 'Oh, sir, she said, sobbing, 'you are very kind to me. Ronald waited a moment or two till her eyes were dry, and then took her across the gardens and into Gatti's.
I gave them "Calligan-Vall-Again" then, and ended with "The Lass o' Killicrankie." I'd been supposed to ha' but a short turn, but it was hard for me to get off the stage. I never had an audience treat me better. 'Tis a great memory to this day I'll ne'er forget that night in Gatti's old hall, no matter hoo lang I live.
"By George there's a man we've not seen!" said Munroe, suddenly, as we sat, verra glum and silent. "Who's that?" I asked. "Tom Tinsley the best fellow in London. You'll like him, whether he can do anything for you or not. I'll hail him " He did, and Mr. Tinsley came over toward our table. I liked his looks. "He's the manager of Gatti's, in the Westminster Bridge Road," whispered Munroe. "Know it?"
I had much to do before it was time for me to be thinking seriously of that. For a time, soon after my appearance at Gatti's, I lived in London. A man can be busy for six months in the London halls, and singing every nicht at more than one. There is a great ring of them, all about the city. London is different frae New York or any great American city in that.
"A dream of the past," said Carroll, waving his pipe through the smoke. "Gatti's? Yes, on special occasions; but for necessity, the Chancellor's, where one gets a piece of the prime roast beef of Old England, from Chicago, and potatoes for ninepence a pot of bitter twopence-halfpenny, and a penny for the waiter. It's most amusing on the whole.
I think I was mair nervous aboot my first appearance in New York than I'd ever been in ma life before. In some ways it was worse than that nicht in the old Gatti's in London. I'd come tae New York wi' a reputation o' sorts, ye ken; I'd brought naethin' o' the sort tae New York.
Ye've heard o' men who went to bed themselves at nicht and woke up famous. Weel, it was no like that, precisely, wi' me after the nicht at Gatti's. I was no famous i' the morn. The papers had nowt to say o' me; they'd not known Mr. Harry Lauder was to mak' his first appearance in the metropolis. And, e'en had they known, I'm no thinking they'd ha' sent anyone to write me up.
'Twas lang before ten o'clock when I was at Gatti's, waiting for it to be my turn. I was verra tired; I'd been going aboot since the early morn, and when it had come supper time I'd been sae nervous I'd had no thought o' food, nor could I ha' eaten any, I do believe, had it been set before me. Weel, waitin' came to an end, and they called me on.
Pepys last month and now the Carlyles. Well, we could not spend a Saturday afternoon better, so if you will meet me to-morrow at Charing Cross, we shall have a cosy little lunch together at Gatti's, and then go down to Chelsea. Maude was a rigid economist, and so was Frank in his way, for with the grand self-respect of the middle classes the thought of debt was unendurable to them.
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