FIFTY YEARS OF A SHOWMAN'S LIFE 



this ready, relapsed into silence, and I felt I was 

 saved. 



The following Saturday he happened to meet 

 the chairman of the meeting, William Thomson, 

 a Scotchman, and, with some misgivings, said 

 to him: "I hope my boy did all right in my 

 absence at the Farmers' Club." "Ay," replied 

 Thomson, "your laddie did reight enuech," and 

 then added, as a sort of after-thought, " and he 

 taks his pipe and his glass every bit as weel as 

 his feyther." I ought, perhaps, to add that this 

 experience did not engender any permanent 

 attachment to either tobacco or brandy and 

 water, for I don't smoke, and I prefer water 

 when it has no brandy in it. But my father 

 never gave me another' chance to do deputy for 

 him at the Farmers' Club. He may, perhaps, 

 have thought that I somewhat over-acted the part 

 on the occasion referred to ; but he was very 

 reticent on the subject. 



I daresay many well-regulated persons would 

 say I ought to have been ashamed of myself for 

 such precocity. But I wasn't at the time, and 

 never have been since. Rather the contrary, 

 because 'I knew the motive was all right. What 

 was all-paramount in my mind was the desire to 

 live up to what was expected of me. I have always 

 had a morbid horror of falling short of anticipa- 

 tions, and perhaps I should have had an easier 

 time all these years if I had attached less impor- 

 tance to this. Still, I think, on the whole, it has 

 stood me in good stead, and made amends for the 

 lack of more shining qualities. So I will not 

 counsel the rising generations' unless the heaventy 



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