Chapter 6

Another thing that we Americans are shy on, both in speaking and singing, is articulation. I always had an idea that I enunciated uncommonly clearly--until I went over there, when I learned more about speaking plainly in three days than I had in a lifetime here.

You will notice you can always understand every word and syllable uttered by an English singer.

One of the funniest things I saw over there were English actors trying to play "Yankee" characters. The only "Yankee" they had to it was to spit and say "By Gosh."

Upon the occasion of our first show in England, at Manchester, I said to my wife,

"Now we are closing the show, so let's get made up early and watch the other acts, and in that way we can get sort of a line on the particular style of humor that appeals strongest."

So when the show started we were right there in the wings, watching and listening.

The first act was a typical English "Comic Singer" of the poorest type, although we did not know that then. He had a pair of trousers six inches too short, white hose, an old Prince Albert coat, buttoned up wrong, a battered silk hat (called a "topper," by the way) and a violently red nose. His first song was about his recent wedding; he had evidently married an old maid of rather sad appearance. The first verse told of the wedding and the wedding dinner; and how they then went upstairs to their room, and, as soon as they got into the room she wanted him to kiss her. But he looked at her and said--

(Chorus)

"Not to-night, Josephine; not to-night; Not to-night; not to-night. For I've had such a lot of pork and beans; Gorgonzola cheese and then sardines. And now you ask for a kiss On a face like yours, old kite. Well, I wouldn't like to spoil the lovely Flavor of the beans, So not to-night, Josephine, not to-night."

Wife and I looked sadly into each other's eyes, clasped hands, and walked sadly to the dressing room. We knew we didn't have anything strong enough to compete with that.

* * * * *

After three weeks "in the Provinces," as they call everything outside of London, we went into the Palace Theater, London. We had had time to learn the language and sort of get acclimated so we did very well there.

But we kept bumping up against new quirks in the language. For instance, somebody asked me if we didn't "play two houses a night in Portsmouth?" and I said No. But I then discovered that "two houses a night" did not mean playing two different theaters a night, but playing two different shows in the same house each night.

I also discovered that several words which had a perfectly innocent meaning in America had entirely different meanings in London. I nearly got licked twice for using improper language.

I discovered that what we would call a Tramp over here was a Moocher over there. I could see a lady _in_ the street but I mustn't see her _on_ the street. I could go up the street two squares but I mustn't go up two blocks. I did not get my salary; I got my treasury. You did not "kid" anybody; you "schwanked" them (spelling not guaranteed) or perhaps you were "spoofing" them.

The big Artists are all "Toppers" or "Bottomers." A "Topper" is one who is always billed at the top of the list of players. A "Bottomer" is the act that is considered next in importance to the "Topper," and is billed in big type at the bottom of the billing.

One thing that makes it hard to please an English Music Hall audience is its widely different classes. Admission to the gallery is from four to six cents while the orchestra seats are two dollars and a half.

While you can see a first-class Vaudeville show for four cents, it costs you twenty-four cents to sit in the gallery of most any Moving Picture show; and sixty-two cents downstairs.

The Palace Theater in London is probably the highest class Vaudeville theater in the world. This is very nice, but it has its drawbacks. The audience applauds by gently tapping two fingers together and nodding heads approvingly.

Oscar Hammerstein asked Mrs. Cressy how she liked the London audiences.

"First-rate," replied Mrs. C., "only you have to look at them to see whether they are applauding or not."

"Look at them?" said Mr. H. "_You have to ask them._"

* * * * *

George Whiting had just had his hat cleaned.

"How does it look?" he asked of his partner, Aubrey Pringle.

"Looks all right enough," said Pringle, "but it smells like a monkey wedding."

* * * * *

It was Tuesday afternoon in St. Paul; the show was going very badly; the first three acts had gone on and come off, without a laugh; then Frank Moran went on. After he had come off, and was on his way to his room, one of the ladies who had been on before him called from her dressing room,

"Did you succeed in waking them up, Mr. Moran?"

"Um--yes--I woke up a couple of them," said Frank.

"What did they do?" asked the girl.

"Went out," said Frank.

* * * * *

We had received a letter from a European Booking Office requesting us to play an engagement at Glasgow, Scotland.

"I would like to know what they think we could do in Scotland," I said; "those chaps never could understand me."

"Well, my goodness," said my wife, "if they can understand each other they shouldn't have any trouble understanding us."

* * * * *

Probably the line that has been jumbled up and spoken wrong more times on the stage than any other is

"I am still fancy free and heart whole."

Try it; and see how many ways there are to go wrong on it.

* * * * *

At Keith's Theater in Boston one week the program announced that two of the acts to be seen that week were--

"Cressy & Dayne; The latest importation in trained animal acts."

and--

"Barron's Dogs, in Mr. Cressy's one act play, _Bill Biffin's Baby_."

"WOODIE"

"Woodie," of the old musical act, "Wood & Shepard," has grown quite deaf, and he tells many funny stories at his own expense. Upon one occasion he came into the Orpheum Theater at San Francisco and met Jim McIntire, of McIntire & Heath.

"Hello, Jim," said Woodie.

"Hello, Woodie," said Jim; "how are you feeling?"

"Half past ten last night," said Woodie.

* * * * *

Woodie was playing at Pastor's Theater in New York. He was living on Thirty-eighth Street. One night about two o'clock in the morning he got on to a Third Avenue elevated train to go home. The only other passenger in the car was a drunk, asleep in the corner. At Twenty-third Street Charlie Seamon, "the Narrow Feller," got on.

"Where are you living?" asked Seamon.

"Thirty-eighth Street," said Woodie; "where are you living?"

"Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street," said Seamon.

"Where?"

"_Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street_," said Seamon, louder.

"Can't hear you," said Woodie.

"_One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street_," howled Seamon.

"Gee Whiz," yelled the drunk, as he scrambled to his feet, and made for the door, "I've gone by my station," and off he got at Twenty-eighth Street.

* * * * *

Woodie was practicing on his cornet in the San Francisco Orpheum. The management sent back word that they could hear him way out in front; Woodie laid down the cornet, thought a moment, sighed, and said,

"Well, perhaps I can't play very good any more, but I must play loud."

A CORK MAN

We were going out to visit Blarney Castle. Not that I felt any particular need of kissing the Blarney Stone myself, for I had managed to talk my way through life so far without so doing, and saw no reason to doubt my ability to do so in the future, providing the United Booking Offices would continue to book us. But of course when you go all the way from New Hampshire to Ireland you just sort of have to see all these things. And then, of course, it would sound kind of cute to say, "Oh, yes; I kissed the Blarney Stone." And I still think it would sound cute; only I am not saying it. For when I took one look at that dinky little piece of rock stuck in the side of a wall one hundred and twenty feet above terra firma, and looked at the hole I was supposed to hang down through to get at it, I said to myself--"_Not guilty._" So any Lady-Manager or Booking Agent can still converse with me with perfect safety. I have _not_ kissed the Blarney Stone.

But that is not what I started in to tell. Of course I could have gone out there in our automobile; but that would be a fine way to visit Blarney Castle, wouldn't it? Yes, it wouldn't. When you are in Ireland do as the Romans do. So we put the auto in a garage (and over there that word does not have any of the French curlicues we put on it, with the last syllable accented. It is pronounced to rhyme with the word carriage) and embarked in a jaunting (or jolting) car.

Our driver was a regular lad; several years ago I wrote a monologue for Marshall P. Wilder, and during this trip this driver told me the whole monologue. And then he had some other encore stuff too.

We were passing an insane asylum and he said that the previous summer he had driven a doctor from Philadelphia out to this asylum; and while there a very funny thing had happened. As the doctor was passing along through one of the wards--Now the driver of an Irish jaunting car sits way up in front, right over the horse's tail, and the passengers sit back of him, facing off sideways; so the driver has to turn his head to talk to the passengers. Up to this point of his story this driver had been turned toward me, telling his story to me; but now he happened to think that it would be more polite to tell it to the ladies; so he turned around back to me and told the rest of it to them. I did not hear a word of it; but when the finish came, and the ladies laughed, I laughed, just to be polite.

And when the laughter had died down I said,

"That puts me in mind of a story I heard over in America. A man was passing an insane asylum and he noticed a clock up on one of the towers; but there was some half hour's difference between his watch and the clock; and while he was standing there trying to figure out which was right, one of the patients stuck his head out of a window right beside the clock. The man below saw him and called up to him,

"'Hey, there: is that clock right?'"

"And the patient replied,

'No; if it was it wouldn't be in here.'"

Honest, if I hadn't known I was in Cork, Ireland, I should have thought I was playing Toronto, Canada; there wasn't a ripple; the driver gave me one disgusted look, hit the horse a cut with the whip and drove on in silence. My wife looked at me angrily and shook her head.

"All right," I said to myself. "You are a Mutt audience and I shall relate no more episodes of a comic nature." And I didn't.

When we had reached our rooms that night my wife turned on me and said sharply,

"What did you do that for?"

"What did I do what for?"

"What did you tell him that story for?"

"Well, why in thunder shouldn't I tell it to him? What's the matter with that story anyway?"

She looked at me curiously for a moment, then said,

"Don't you know what you did?"

"No."

"Why that was the same story he had just told you."

* * * * *

E. J. Connelly has got a summer home at Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire. He also owns several building lots around there. As building lots without buildings on them do not bring in much cash, Edward was seriously contemplating building some cottages on the lots, furnishing and renting them. I met him one evening this fall and asked him how the cottages were coming on.

"It's all off," he said; "nothing doing in the cottage line for me."

I asked him what had happened to change his mind so suddenly.

"Well, Bill," he said, "you know I am not a chap who goes hunting for trouble; I'm nervous; I don't like to be troubled with other people's troubles. This afternoon I was over to Bob Eaton's, and you know he has got some cottages up at the other end of the lake that he rents, furnished."

"Yes, I knew that."

"Well," continued Connelly, "while I was over to Bob's this afternoon a man who has rented one of these cottages came down there. He had left his cottage and driven twelve miles down to Bob's house to make a kick; and what do you suppose the kick was?"

"Haven't the least idea."

"There wasn't any nutmeg grater in the cottage. Twelve miles to make a five-cent kick. And my cottages would be only two hundred feet away. No landlord business for your Uncle Edward. No, sir."

THE TROUBLES OF THE LAUGH GETTERS

It is a solemn business, this getting laughs for a living. Supposing the people don't laugh. Then how are you going to live? Take an act that you have been doing for weeks. Every afternoon and every night the audience laughs at exactly the same lines; this goes on night after night, week after week and city after city. Then you go into some city like Toronto or St. Paul and Hamlet's soliloquy would get as many laughs as you do. Now what are you going to do? Other players on the bill are getting laughs right along and you, in the language of the stage, are "dying standing up."

I have had the same experiences off the stage. I once tried to tell an old German gentleman in St. Louis a story that had been highly recommended to me as being funny. It was about a man going up to a St. Louis policeman and asking him the quickest way to get to the Mt. Olive hospital. The policeman told him to go over to Grogan's saloon and call the bartender an A. P. A.

Then I waited for the laugh. And immediately I knew I had a Toronto audience. The old man studied a moment, then said,

"Why did he not tell him to take an Olive Street car?"

* * * * *

An old lady from Brooklyn was visiting us. I told her one of Lew Dockstader's stories. How he had a girl over in Brooklyn. Her father was an undertaker. And Lew could always tell how business was with the old man by the looks of the table. If he had had a good job lately there would be flowers on the table, and ice on the butter.

I waited for the laugh. "But the giggle that he longed for never came." The old lady looked up with a look of interest and said,

"Did he say what their name was? Perhaps we knew them."

* * * * *

I met a banker in Toronto. I tried to tell him a story referring to the banking business, hoping against hope that I might get one laugh in that city. I told him about a colored man who went into a colored bank down South and wanted to draw out his deposit of twenty dollars that had been in there for eight years. And the colored cashier told him he did not have any money in there. That the interest had eaten it up long ago.

"Yes," said the banking gentleman, with a pitying smile, "very clever. But he was wrong, you know; interest adds to your principal, not detracts."

* * * * *

William Cahill was playing Hoboken. Hoboken is entirely Dutch. William is entirely Irish. Result, William, on his opening show, did not get a laugh or a hand. After his act was over he stood around, dazed, for a few minutes; then he made his way over to the "peek hole," looked out and sized up the audience carefully, then turned away, muttering to himself,

"This is a h---- of a place for an Irishman."

* * * * *

Mr. and Mrs. Harry Foy carried a nurse-maid for their little girl. When I came in to the theater I would always go in and speak to the nurse-maid and the baby. Then after I was made up I would come in again and visit them. But the maid never knew that I was the same fellow; and along the last of the week she began to wonder what ever became of that old chap she saw around the stage during the show, but never afterwards. So she went over to Miss Dayne and said,

"Say, do you carry that old man with you or do you get a new one in every town?"

* * * * *

"Well," said Clarence Drown, manager of the Los Angeles Orpheum, "she is one of those women you are always glad to learn is the wife of some man you don't like."

* * * * *

Freddie Niblo, Jr., sat on the floor in their New York home one day, thinking it over. Finally he looked up at his mother (Josephine Cohan) and said,

"Say, Mama, wouldn't it be nice if you had a regular husband instead of an actor husband? Then perhaps he would be at home sometimes."

* * * * *

A well known Booking Agency had just transferred one of the stenographers from the New York office to the Chicago office. On her first morning in the new office she came over to the manager and said,

"I suppose you start the day the same here as they do in the New York office?"

"Why--er--yes--I suppose so," said the manager.

"Well, kiss me then, and let me get to work."

ASLEEP WITH HER SWITCH

A certain young lady (and Abe Jacobs says he knows she was a lady because she told him so, adding the information that any one who said she wasn't was a ---- ---- liar) was appearing at the Majestic Theater in Chicago not so very long ago. Owing to conditions over which she, apparently, had no control, the exact hours of her appearance were a little uncertain. Her first entrance was rather a dramatic affair. One of the other characters, hearing a noise behind a certain door, would draw a revolver, aim it at the door, and say--

"Come out! Come out, or I will shoot!"

Upon this occasion everything ran smoothly--up to this point; the gentleman had drawn his revolver and ordered her to appear.

"Come out!" he said; "come out or I will shoot!"

But there was nothing doing; so he repeated,

"Come out or I will shoot!"

And still nothing doing; so for a third time he called,

"If you don't come out I will shoot!"

There was a pause, then, as the curtain started to descend, a disgusted voice came from the stage manager's box,

"Go on and shoot; she's down in her dressing room asleep."

* * * * *

A crowd was sitting around the Vaudeville Comedy Club, and the conversation had drifted around to a discussion of the old-time Vaudeville and that of the present day.

"Well, I can tell you one thing," said James Dolan, of Dolan & Lenhar, "there didn't use to be all these divorces and separations among the old-timers. We didn't use to think that we had to have a new wife every year or two; we stuck to the old ones; the ones that had helped us get our starts. Look at Mr. and Mrs. Mark Murphy; Mr. and Mrs. Tom Nawn; Ryan & Richfield; Cressy and Dayne; Dolan & Lenhar; Filson & Errol. I tell you, boys, we _stuck_ in those days."

"Yes, but here; wait a minute," spoke up Horace Wright; "give us youngsters a chance. I haven't been married but three years, but I am sticking as fast as I can. Give me time, and I'll get into your class--sometime."

I JOIN THE SUFFRAGETTES

I am now a suffragette. I don't exactly understand what it is all about yet, but when I was up in New Hampshire a few weeks ago I met a very enthusiastic lady who started in to convert me to "the cause." Finally, after she had talked fourteen minutes without breathing once, I got a chance to speak.

"But wait a minute," I said; "you are wasting time. As I understand this thing, what you want is equal rights--for the sexes; is that correct?"

She said that was it exactly.

"All right then," I said, "I am with you, heart and soul; and, although I haven't known it, I have been with you for a long time. I am willing to fight shoulder to shoulder with you for this glorious cause, for if there is anything that will get a man equal rights with a woman I am for it."

"But," she said, "you _vote_, don't you?"

"_No_," I said, "_I can't! Martin Beck won't let me off to go home._"

"But," she continued, "you can sit on juries, and we can't."

"Well, good Lord," I exclaimed, "you don't want to sit on juries, do you?"

"We want to do everything that men do."

"Well, I don't know," I replied; "it doesn't look good to me; women on a jury."

"Why not?"

"Well, supposing there should be some big case on, and there were six women and six men on the jury, and the jury should be locked up in the jury room all night. You know darn well the verdict would be 'Guilty.'"

* * * * *

If I had an automobile that was in the last stages of decomposition and I couldn't sell it to anybody else I think I should try to sell it to the chap that painted that automobile on the drop curtain in the Garrick Theater in Chicago.

On this drop curtain there is painted an electric runabout. The chap that painted it knew a good deal more about painting than he did about automobiles. There isn't the slightest symptom of any steering gear on it; the front axle is a straight iron rod without a sign of any joint in it.

One of the passengers is either sitting exactly on the top of the steering bar, or else there isn't any; and with all four wheels set rigidly so it can't turn, the car is just leaving the roadway and plunging into a flower bed.

* * * * *

There is one theater in Chicago that is going to have an awful time enforcing that "no tipping allowed" rule. The Illinois Theater has a stage manager by the name of Frank Tipping.

* * * * *

My wife says that all the Mormons are not in Utah: only their wives are not on.

* * * * *

Jim Morton says Duluth is a nice little "Street in One."

* * * * *

Fred Wyckoff says the two worst weeks in show business are Holy Week and Milwaukee.

* * * * *

"Tommie" Ryan has got the right idea. He has had himself appointed as a special police officer over at his home in Hohokus, N. J. (Think of any one's having a bright idea in a town with a name like that.) Now when he gets lonesome he runs his automobile up Main Street at full speed (13 miles an hour), arrests himself for overspeeding, collects two dollars for making the arrest, then fails to appear against himself and the case is dismissed.

* * * * *

There is no disputing the fact that education is a great help to a young man starting out in the world. Said bright thought being prompted by the following ad, clipped from a Buffalo, N. Y., paper:

"Help Wanted: Automobile washer, $18.00. Stenographer and book keeper, $12.00."

* * * * *

I attended a newspaper men's banquet in Rochester, N. Y. One of the speakers, a quaint, funny appearing little old chap, was introduced as a man who lived in a town of six thousand population, but had a circulation of thirty thousand for his paper.

"And," said the toastmaster, as he introduced him, "I would like to have him tell us where those thirty thousand papers go to."

The little old chap arose, scratched his bushy head and said,

"Well--it goes all over. Of course most of 'em go 'round through New York state. But some of 'em go down to Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire. Then a few go down South. I have a few subscribers out through California and Oregon and Washington. Some go to Honolulu; the Philippines and two or three go as far as Australia.

"And," he continued, with a sigh, "along in the earlier days I used to have considerable trouble to keep it from going to Hell."

* * * * *

A young fellow up in New Hampshire has written a Vaudeville playlet and sent it on for my approval. If he could have kept up the gait he struck on the first page I should have bought it:

_Maid_: A lady waits without.

_Master_: Without what?

_Maid_: Without food or raiment.

_Master_: Give her food and bring her hither.

* * * * *