In the year 1889 I made my first professional visit to London, and appeared in turn at the Oxford, Metropolitan, and Cambridge.  […]

Scotch humour was very strange to the cockney at that time: much different to what it is now.  Well, I opened all right, and, as the Americans say, “I struck oil.”  I sang three songs nightly in each hall.

Charles Godfrey, of “On Guard” fame, was in his zenith then, and was on the bill with me.  I followed him every night at the “Met.”  It is no joke, as I found on that occasion, travelling in a cab all over London of a night―popping in and out.  One cannot do himself justice, or give his audience of his very best.  Under such conditions an artiste never gets settled down to his art; it is a case of rush, rush, rush.